Topic: Stephen Collins

Stephen Weaver Collins (born October 1, 1947) is an American actor, writer, and singer. He is perhaps best known for playing the role of Eric Camden on the long running television series 7th Heaven and more recently as Dr. Dayton King on the ABC TV series No Ordinary Family.

Collins was born in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of Madeleine (née Robertson) and Cyrus S. Collins, an airline executive. Collins is the great-great-grandson of General James Baird Weaver, the 1880 Greenback Party presidential candidate and the 1892 Populist Party ("People's Party") candidate for president. Collins was raised with his two older brothers in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York and attended Amherst College, graduating cum laude. He played bass guitar and rhythm guitar in a number of rock and roll bands at Amherst, including Tambourine Charlie & The Four Flat Tires, The Naugahyde Revolution (with Jim Steinman, then a fellow student, on keyboards), and The Flower & Vegetable Show (he has played his guitar on 7th Heaven, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and in the 2007 romantic comedy Because I Said So).

Collins' Broadway credits include his 2008 role as King Arthur in Spamalot and prior appearances in Moonchildren, The Ritz, The Loves of Anatol, and No Sex Please, We're British; Off Broadway he appeared opposite Sigourney Weaver in Christopher Durang's Beyond Therapy, as Macduff to Christopher Walken's Macbeth at Lincoln Center, and as husband to Julie Andrews (with whom he shares a birthday) in the Stephen Sondheim revue, Putting It Together at Manhattan Theatre Club in 1993.