Phil Collins, a prominent personality for over 5 decades as a percussionist, vocalist, actor, and newspaper star figure, has had a long, complex, and fascinating career and personal life. He’s made lots of music, and a lot of different music, even receiving an Academy Award for his composition from the Disney classic “Tarzan.” Now comes the time you’ve eagerly waited for: a deeper insight into Phil Collins’ life.
PHIL COLLINS WAS A TEENAGE ACTOR
Collins was able to break into professional acting since his mother ran a theatrical firm for a Uk performing arts institution, according to the Express. When the creators of “Oliver!,” the West End-based famous musical rendition of Charles Dickens’s “Oliver Twist,” called in 1964, she brought her son on an audition. Collins, who was 13 at the moment, edged out approximately 100 rival actors for the role. He portrayed the part for seven months before leaving when his singing “began croaking on some of the lower notes” during a show.
PHIL COLLINS FOUND HIS WAY INTO GENESIS BY CHANCE
Phil Collins’ first experience of rock celebrity status occurred as the drummer for Genesis, a 1970s prog-rock group that later became a 1980s soft rock band. According to AllMusic, he wasn’t a founding band member, but he was the fourth drummer, after Chris Stewart, John Silver, and John Mayhew. Collins, a veteran of groups such as Flaming Youth, landed an audition with Genesis in 1970, despite not understanding what he was committing himself into. “I’d never heard of Genesis, I’d heard of them,” Collins explained on “Ultimate Classic Rock Nights” (via UCR).
PHIL COLLINS BECAME GENESIS’S LEAD SINGER BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE COULD
The left-standing Genesis members didn’t think any outsider fit in until they learned they had a very excellent singer in the mix: Collins, who’d sometimes handled the vocals on a deeper record cut here and there. Collins told iNews, “It was the last thing I wanted to do.” “But when Peter left, we couldn’t find another singer, so the rest of the band convinced me to do it.”
THE WHO WAS LOOKING FOR PHIL COLLINS?
As per Rolling Stone, The Who’s percussionist Keith Moon died in September 1978 as a consequence of circumstances related to his intoxication. Following the loss, Townshend and Collins worked together in the studio, and the latter volunteered his skills to the band. “I said to him: ‘Have you got anybody to play the drums? Cos I’d love to do it,'” Collins recalled to Classic Rock. As per Rolling Stone, The Who’s percussionist Keith Moon died in September 1978 as a consequence of circumstances related to his intoxication. Following the loss, Townshend and Collins worked together in the studio, and the latter volunteered his skills to the band. “I said to him, ‘Do you have someone to play the drums? I’d love to do that,'” Collins told Classic Rock. He also planned to leave Genesis for higher-profile employment with The Who. Townshend then informed Collins, unhappily, that he’d just recruited longtime Who colleague Kenney Jones to substitute Moon. “But I would have done the job. I would have joined them,” Collins explained.
IN THE 1980S, PHIL COLLINS HAD THREE CAREERS
Collins always had time to play drums and percussion on albums by other musicians. He played drums on Daryl Hall’s solo LP “Sacred Songs” and Robert Plant’s “Pictures at Eleven,” as well as producing, composing music for, singing backing on, and providing drumming for Frida, alias. Anni-Frid Lyngstad of ABBA’s blockbuster record and single “Something’s Going On.”
PHIL COLLINS WAS EVERYWHERE AT LIVE AID
“I turned up and I was a square peg in a round hole,” he told Q (via Blabbermouth). “You could sense I wasn’t welcome. If I could have walked off, I would have done,” he said, adding that the gig “was a disaster,” with singer Robert Plant blaming the band’s self-proclaimed bad performance on his “hoarse vocals.”
Collins did, however, make headlines for his other Live Aid-related antics. According to Classic Rock, Collins played the part of his solo material at the Live Aid concert in London, then flew to the United States and joined the floor with veterans of Led Zeppelin in Philadelphia.
HE WAS A WOULD-BE MOVIE STAR
Phil Collins made his way back into the TV and movie industry after his musical achievement, with minor roles in shows like “Miami Vice” and “Hook.” He has only had a few leading roles, such as those in the 1993 illusionist comic “Frauds,” and the 1988 crime comic “Buster,” which managed to earn only $540,000, probably due to scandal over the movie production light of true, tragedies. Collins portrayed Buster Edwards, a British thief who hijacked a train and gravely wounded the driver in the process in 1963. According to UPI, the movie’s debut served as a fundraiser for Collins’ drug-addiction foundation, the Prince’s Trust, and Turning Point.
WHEN PHIL COLLINS TRIED TO GO COMPLETELY SOLO
Although Phil Collins never “went solo” in the classic sense, keeping on to his Genesis job and keeping an incredibly successful life with his own name, he did indeed take the concept of being on his own, commercially and artistically, to the pinnacle. His fifth studio album, “Both Sides,” released in 1993, is entirely and solely the production of Phil Collins.
TECHNOLOGY CONTINUES TO HELP PHIL COLLINS’ DIVORCES
Collins remarried for the third time in 1999, to Orianne Cevey, according to The Sun. They separated in 2008, remarried in 2015, and then split again in 2020. Collins was the one who got the bad news on this occasion via electronic transfer. Cevey texted Collins in July 2020 that she’d fallen in love with another man, whom she wedded a few days later.
PHIL COLLINS HAS MANY MAJOR HEALTH PROBLEMS.
Collins revealed to The Independent in 2017 that he has type 2 diabetes and associated bacterial infection in a foot abscess. Collins was admitted the same year after slipping and banging his head on a chair, according to CNN. Collins could still tour and perform, according to the New York Post, despite the fact that he really can not move as well as he used to, used a walking stick when he attempted, and played from a seated posture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JhSWcMPypU