Joan Collins

At 47, most actors are coasting on whatever credibility they built in their thirties. Collins was handed a role that Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren had both passed on. Alexis Carrington in Dynasty had been a near-miss before she walked in. By 1984, the show was beating Dallas with over 20 million weekly viewers. She won the Golden Globe in 1983 and got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame later that year. Her earlier Hollywood career, which included reportedly taking parts originally earmarked for Marilyn Monroe, had basically been prologue.

At 90, she showed up to the 2024 Emmys in a sequined gown and went viral for looking ageless. That's a decent summary of where she stands: still turning up, still generating a reaction. She was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth in 2015, which is either long overdue or predictable depending on your feelings about the British honors system. The Alexis Carrington persona has been so thoroughly absorbed into pop culture that people forget she's been working since the 1950s.

Her father Joseph Collins was a talent agent whose clients included The Beatles, Tom Jones, and Shirley Bassey. Her sister Jackie Collins sold over 500 million books. The family was, professionally speaking, always in the business. Her first marriage, to actor Maxwell Reed when she was 19, ended badly in ways she only described decades later: she has said he drugged and raped her at 17 and she felt pressured into marrying him. Her fifth husband, Percy Gibson, is 32 years younger and she has called it her happiest marriage.