Photo: Greg Hernandez / CC BY 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Stephen Collins is a difficult figure for me to write about, and I think that difficulty is the honest takeaway. For eleven seasons he embodied television's gentlest father on 7th Heaven, an Amherst-educated actor with genuine range on stage and screen, even a published novelist. That his career ended in disgrace forces a question I keep returning to: how much of what we love on screen is the performer, and how much is pure performance? His body of work remains a record of real skill, but for me it now reads as a caution against confusing an actor's warmth with the man himself.
Overview
Stephen Weaver Collins (born October 1, 1947) is an American former actor. He is known for playing Eric Camden on the WB/CW television series 7th Heaven from 1996 to 2007. Afterwards, Collins played the roles of Dayton King on the ABC television series No Ordinary Family and Gene Porter in the NBC television series Revolution, father of Elizabeth Mitchell's character, Rachel Matheson.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Stephen Collins
- Name (Japanese)
- スティーヴン・コリンズ
- Reading
- すてぃーゔん・こりんず
- Born
- October 1, 1947 (age 78)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Libra / Boar
- Origin
- Des Moines, Iowa, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- film actor / stage actor / television actor / novelist / actor
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Hastings High School
- University
- Amherst College
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Film actor — see all → · Stage actor — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-11
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.