Charles Collins

Biography

Amiable, dark and wavy-haired and with a slim mustache, actor/dancer Charles Collins would be distantly remembered for his one big film role, the title charmer in the lowbudget programmer Dancing Pirate (1936). Born on January 7, 1904, on a farm in Frederick, Oklahoma, he was a self-taught teenage saxophone player before learning to dance. A business school graduate following high school, he later worked as an accountant but never lost track of his interest in dancing and sidelined as a performer in a local Oklahoma City musical "The Merry Widow". He continued to this artistic interest with work in vaudeville and made his Broadway debut as a dancer in "Artists and Models" at age 23. Meeting fellow dancer Nitza Vermille in the show, they formed a dancing act on the vaudeville circuit and he later soloed in London revues for a time. Charles met dancer/actress Dorothy Stone, daughter of actor Fred Stone, when they were all performing in the Broadway musical "Ripples" (1930) and they married a year later. Later they put together a nightclub dance act. They also appeared in the Broadway musical "Smiling Faces" (192 and "As Thousands Cheer" (1934). They also appeared in Charles' first film short Shave It with Music (1932) and in the short Paree, Paree (1934). He failed to capitalize on his two chances at film stardom. The lead in Poverty Row musical Dancing Pirate (1936) was too lowbudget to garner much interest in the tall, lean actor. A second feature lead in Swing Hostess (1944) opposite Martha Tilton proved the same. In later years he and his wife returned to Broadway ("Sea Legs" (1937), "Hooray for What!" (1938), toured in a slew of stage shows, appeared in a couple of musical shorts, and entertained the troops overseas. Their final Broadway endeavors were "You Can't Take It With You" (1945), which starred Dorothy's father Fred Stone and the revival of her father's stage vehicle "The Red Mill" (1947). When offers faded, Charles later switched to focus more as a talent agent. Following Dorothy's death in 1974, he met and lived with his longtime companion Catherine Garvin. His last work was a 1984 episode of "The Master" on TV. He died of pneumonia at age 95 in Santa Barbara, CA.