by David Steen

Joan Collins – the Stud, Limousine, London, 1978.

Limited Edition David Steen Estate Print.

Limited Edition: All prints are limited editions, no further prints are produced once sold.

Paper size - 54 x 38 " / 137 x 97 cm.
Limited to 10 only this size.

All prints are bespoke and printed to order.
Stamped and numbered by the Estate.


Joan Collins

Dame Joan Henrietta Collins DBE (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author and columnist. Collins is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a People's Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

She is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.

In 1983, Collins was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She has been recognised for her philanthropy, particularly her advocacy towards causes relating to children, which has earned her many honours. In 2015, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for her charitable services, presented to her by the then Prince of Wales, Charles III.

Collins was born in Paddington, London and trained as an actress in her teens at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She signed to The Rank Organisation at the age of 17 and had small roles in the British films Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951) and The Woman's Angle (1952) before taking on a supporting role in Judgment Deferred (1952). Collins went under contract to 20th Century Fox in 1955, and in that same year she starred as Evelyn Nesbit in The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, Elizabeth Raleigh in The Virgin Queen and Princess Nellifer in Land of the Pharaohs, the latter garnering a cult following. Collins continued to take on film roles throughout the late 1950s appearing in The Opposite Sex (1956), Sea Wife, (1957) and The Wayward Bus (1957). After starring in the epic film Esther and the King (1960), she was released on request from her contract with 20th Century Fox.

Collins appeared only in a few film roles in the 1960s, notably starring in The Road to Hong Kong (1962), and Warning Shot (1967). Collins also appeared in the Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" as Edith Keeler (1967), and Subterfuge (1968). Collins began to take on local roles again back in Britain in the 1970s, appearing in the films Revenge (1971), Quest for Love (1971), Tales from the Crypt (1972) Fear in the Night (1972) and Dark Places (1973), as well as Tales That Witness Madness (1973), Empire of the Ants (1977), which earned her a Saturn Award nomination, The Stud (1978), Zero to Sixty (1978), Game for Vultures (1979) and The Bitch (1979). From 1981 to 1989, she starred as Alexis Colby in the soap opera Dynasty, which made her an international superstar. It brought her critical acclaim, winning her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Series – Drama in 1982, and earning her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1984.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Collins worked sporadically in acting. She took fewer film roles, most notably appearing in The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000) and the TV movie These Old Broads (2001) alongside Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds and Shirley MacLaine. She made her comeback to mainstream television in the 2010s, taking on recurring roles in the series Happily Divorced (2011–2013), The Royals (2014–2018), Benidorm (2014–2017) and American Horror Story: Apocalypse (2018). Her first starring film role since the 1980s was The Time of Their Lives (2017), and she has also appeared in various independent films, which includes the critically acclaimed Gerry (2018).

Early life

Collins was born on 23 May 1933 in Paddington, London, and brought up in Maida Vale, the daughter of Elsa Collins (née Bessant), a dance teacher, and Joseph William Collins, a talent agent[citation needed] whose clients would later include Shirley Bassey, The Beatles and Tom Jones.

Her father, a native of South Africa, was Jewish, and her British mother was Anglican.
She had two younger siblings, Jackie, a novelist, and Bill, a property agent.
She was educated at the Francis Holland School, an independent day school for girls in London.

Collins made her stage debut in the Henrik Ibsen play A Doll's House at the age of nine, and at the age of 16 trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.
At the age of 17, Collins was signed to the Rank Organisation, a British film studio.



Copyright: © David Steen / The David Steen Archive

David Steen’s introduction to photography was as a 15-year-old school leaver joining Picture Post where he had the good luck to be taken under the wing of the legendary Bert Hardy as an assistant. It was the ultimate training ground in photojournalism, and the launch pad for his career.

David’s reunion with Picture Post after doing his National Service (as special photographer based in Eygpt, covering the major trouble zones) was short-lived. The magazine was losing ground and closed. He moved to Fleet Street, first to a bright new Mirror title, Woman’s Sunday Mirror, where incidentally he picked up First Prize in Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Best Pictures of the Year Award for his sequence of ‘Birth of a Baby’, the progress of a young woman delivering her own baby under hypnosis.

He was 21, the youngest ever to be awarded this prize. There followed time as a staff photographer with The Daily Mail; Fleet Street was the hub of the world. Then on to freelancing…Queen magazine, Nova, the Sunday Times Magazine, international magazines around the world, over the years covering projects as diverse as riots in Harlem to a film set in Acapulco, a battered wives’ refuge to the Queen and family at Sandringham: the hopeless, the homeless, the glitterati. Trained on the maxim ‘every picture tells a story’ he has focused on film stars, actors, criminals, politicians, prime ministers and countless men, women and children going about their everyday lives.

David Steen believes himself to be lucky. He thinks lucky; luck is being in the right place at the right time, having the luck to have a loving family and enduring friends and winning a three-year battle against cancer.

Asked by aspiring photographers for his best advice, his stock reply is: ‘Get up early.’

David Steen † 1936 – 2015