[citation needed] Collins enlisted in the Army and served in Europe, where he was a radio and television performer for the Armed Forces Network.
[citation needed] Collins made a career in television, co-starring, with Jack Warden and Mark Slade, in the 1965 series The Wackiest Ship in the Army.
He starred in the 1972 television series The Sixth Sense, in syndication part of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, as the parapsychologist and extrasensory perception-gifted Dr. Michael Rhodes.
, Hawaii Five-O, The Six Million Dollar Man, ALF, Alice, The Love Boat, The Bionic Woman, Charlie's Angels, Roots, Gimme A Break!, Friends, Vega$, Yes, Dear, JAG, and most recently Dirty Sexy Money.
Collins and his wife Mary Ann Mobley played Dr and Mrs. Diller on "The Love Boat" S2 E6 "Ship of Ghouls" (1978).
[citation needed] Collins also had many movie roles, including The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962), Angel in My Pocket (1969) also starring Andy Griffith, the original Airport (1970), Quarantined (1970), Houston, We've Got a Problem (1974), The Night They Took Miss Beautiful (1977), the horror thriller Killer Fish (1979), starring Lee Majors, Watchers Reborn (1998), and The Jungle Book: Search for the Lost Treasure (1998).
He was arrested a year later, on January 31, 2009, in Santa Barbara County, California, and pleaded no contest to driving a motor home while drunk.
On January 5, 2011, Collins was charged with defrauding an innkeeper, a felony, in Harrison County, Mississippi, for allegedly failing to pay his bill at Jazzeppi's Restaurant, according to a statement released by the Biloxi Police Department.