Lewis Collins (27 May 1946 – 27 November 2013)[1][2] was an English actor, best known for his career-defining role playing 'Bodie' in the late 1970s – early 1980s British television series The Professionals.

Turning down the option of an audition with The Beatles, Collins continued playing music on an amateur basis for a number of local bands, including The Eyes, and The Georgians.

[1] In late 1964, Collins quit hairdressing to become the bass player with The Mojos (which his father managed),[1] performing on their charting singles "Goodbye Dolly Gray" and "Until My Baby Comes Home",[11] and moved from Liverpool to London with them when the band appeared to have good commercial prospects.

However the band failed to chart again and broke up, and finding himself in the midst of cosmopolitan London in 1966 during the Swinging Sixties, Collins made a living engaged in temping work such as delivery van driving, cleaning windows and being a waiter,[9] before deciding that he wanted to become an actor after hearing a play being performed on the radio.

[12] Having been accepted for training in acting by the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, which he attended between 1968 and 1971,[6][13] he drew the notice of his fellow students for an "electrifying" performance in the lead role of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

[1] While in Glasgow he also taught deaf and mute children mobility skills, learning British sign language so he could communicate with them, later saying that this was the most satisfying work that he had done in his life.

[19] While appearing in The Farm at the Royal Court in 1973 Collins received an offer for his first television role in the British Broadcasting Corporation's police drama Z-Cars.

Although not getting on particularly well with one another personally, the good-humoured antagonism and bravado between Collins and Shaw on-screen worked well and the series was highly successful on British television for the next six years, making household names of them both.

An initial plan to continue to make feature films with the Who Dares Wins producer Euan Lloyd, including one set in the Falklands War provisionally entitled Task Force South,[26] came to nothing, so he instead signed a German-Italian co-production contract to star in three mercenary war genre feature films directed by Antonio Margheriti set in the Third World, viz., Code Name: Wild Geese (1984), Kommando Leopard (1985) and Der Commander (1988),[27] which attempted to capitalise on the recent box-office hits of The Wild Geese and The Dogs of War.

[28] In the early 1990s, seeking to extend his career options in drama to work beyond acting he attended courses in screenwriting and direction at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in Los Angeles, California, US,[29] but this led to no subsequent professional employment.

In the mid-1990s he moved his family to Los Angeles, where he was residing part-time, while he returned to England intermittently for the occasional provincial theatre tour and minor acting roles in television productions.

However, after months of negotiations it was announced by the producer David Wickes that Collins had been dropped as a casting option for the role for undisclosed reasons, and it had been given to the actor Edward Woodward instead.