Actress Roberta Collins, whose B-movie career you already know about thanks to my posts from this past January, would have turned eighty years old today.
It is impossible to say how her acting career would have turned out had she made it into mainstream Hollywood movies. But it's possible to imagine how it would have unfolded. I can certainly imagine a Roberta Collins filmography in which she, not Meryl Streep or Jane Fonda, would have been the star of movies such as Sophie's Choice or Agnes of God, respectively (I'm just throwing out titles at random here), or she might have been the star of a movie that was never made because the studio just couldn't find the right actress for the lead female role. Collins could have played the mother of a character played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Instead of playing women in prison, she could have played a deputy consul in a U.S. consulate in Munich or Milan or some other major non-capital foreign city, or some other intriguing role.
Think of all the Oscars and Golden Globes she could have been nominated for . . . and she inevitably would have won a few. If she hadn't fatally overdosed in 2008, when her career was long since done and her life had become a shambles, she might not only still be working today, she might have been looking forward to the 2025 Oscars preparing to accept a Lifetime Achievement award.
In some parallel universe - one that includes Kamala Harris as President of the United States - Roberta Collins could be a living legend today, recognized as one of America's finest actresses. She could have been a great actress in this universe, the one we're actually living in. But we'll never know. The world as we know it was not kind or receptive to Roberta Collins or her ambition. ðŸ˜
Pictured above is Collins as a prison security officer in 1986's Vendetta - her last film role. ðŸ˜
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