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Phil Collins is a Actor, Lyricist and Sound British born on 30 january 1951 at London (United-kingdom)

Phil Collins

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Birth name Philip David Charles Collins
Nationality United-kingdom
Birth 30 january 1951 (73 years) at London (United-kingdom)

Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, RVO (born 30 January 1951), is an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, music producer, actor, and author. He gained fame as both the drummer and lead singer for the rock band Genesis, as well as worldwide success as a solo artist. Collins sang the lead vocals on dozens of hit albums and singles in the UK and the US between 1976 and 2010, either solo or with Genesis. Collins is among the best-selling music artists of all time with 33.5 million RIAA-certified albums sold in the US and an estimated 150 million worldwide. He is one of three recording artists (along with Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson) who have sold over 100 million albums worldwide both as solo artists and (separately) as principal members of a band. AllMusic calls Collins "one of the most successful pop and adult contemporary singers of the '80s and beyond".

After drama school training and various roles as a child actor, Collins joined Genesis in 1970 as the group's drummer. He became their lead singer in 1975 following the departure of Peter Gabriel. He launched a solo career in 1981, heavily influenced by his personal life and soul music, which brought both himself and Genesis greater commercial success. His solo singles were sometimes about lost love and often featured his distinctive gated reverb drum sound. His best-selling singles include "In the Air Tonight", "Against All Odds", "Sussudio" and "Another Day in Paradise". After achieving fame as a solo artist, Collins also accepted occasional acting roles again. His music has earned him seven Grammy Awards, six Brit Awards—winning Best British Male three times, an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards and a Disney Legend Award. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1999 and induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of Genesis) in 2010 and the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2012.

During his most successful period as a solo artist between 1983 and 1990, Collins had three UK number-one singles and seven number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100, as well as a US number one with Genesis in 1986. When his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, Collins had more US top 40 singles than any other artist during the 1980s. In 2008, Collins was ranked the 22nd most successful artist on the "Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists". Although one of the world's best-selling recording artists and a highly respected drummer, Collins has divided critical opinion among music journalists and received praise and criticism from fellow artists. He announced his retirement in 2011 to focus on his family life, but continued to write songs. He announced his return to the music industry in 2015.

Biography

Family
Collins has been married three times, each have ended in divorce. He married Andrea Bertorelli in 1975. They met as students in a drama class in London. They had a son, Simon Collins, who later also became a vocalist and drummer with the band Sound of Contact. Collins adopted Bertorelli's daughter Joely, a Canadian actress and film producer.

Collins met his second wife, American Jill Tavelman, in 1980. They were married from 1984 to 1996. They had one daughter, Lily Collins, born in 1989.

Collins married his third wife, Orianne Cevey, a Swiss national, in 1999. They have two sons, Nicholas and Matthew. They bought Sir Jackie Stewart's former house located in Begnins, Switzerland, overlooking Lake Geneva. Announcing their separation on 16 March 2006, they were divorced on 17 August 2008. Collins continued to live in Switzerland at the time, residing in Féchy, while he also maintained homes in New York City and Dersingham, Norfolk. In 2008, after his wife left him, she and the boys moved to Miami, leaving Collins devastated in "darkness; drinking too much, which nearly killed me" But after help from rehab professionals he stopped alcohol completely in 2013. In early 2015 Orianne became paralyzed due to Brown-Séquard syndrome secondary to a botched spine surgery, so Collins then moved to Miami (in a separate home, previously owned by Jennifer Lopez) to be closer to his family.

Since 2011, Collins has been dating CBS 2 WCBS-TV news reporter Dana Tyler.

Fortune
Collins was estimated to have a fortune of £115 million in the Sunday Times Rich List of 2011, making him one of the 20 wealthiest people in the British music industry. In 2012, Collins was estimated to be the second wealthiest drummer in the world, beaten to first place by Ringo Starr.

Court case

On 29 March 2000, Phil Collins launched a case against two former musicians from his band to recoup £500,000 ($780,000) in royalties that were overpaid. Louis Satterfield, 62, and Rahmlee Davis, 51, claimed their contract entitled them to 0.5 per cent of the royalties from Serious Hits... Live!, a live album recorded during Collins's Seriously, Live! World Tour in 1990. Their claim was they were an integral part of the whole album, but Collins responded the two should only receive royalties from the five tracks in which they were involved. Instead of asking for a return of what Collins considered overpayment, he sought to recoup the funds by withholding future royalties to Satterfield and Davis, which amounted to less than an annual sum of £12,500 ($20,000) each.

On 19 April 2000, the High Court ruled that the two musicians would receive no more royalty money from Phil Collins. The amount that Collins was seeking was halved, and Satterfield and Davis (who originally brought the suit forward in California) would not have to repay any of it. The judge agreed with Collins's argument that Satterfield and Davis should have been paid for only the five tracks on which they performed, including the hit "Sussudio".

Health problems
Collins had reportedly lost hearing in his left ear in 2000 due to a viral infection. In September 2009, it was reported that Collins could no longer play the drums, due to a recent operation to repair dislocated vertebrae in his neck. A statement from Collins on the Genesis band website said, "There isn't any drama regarding my 'disability' and playing drums. Somehow during the last Genesis tour I dislocated some vertebrae in my upper neck and that affected my hands. After a successful operation on my neck, my hands still can't function normally. Maybe in a year or so it will change, but for now it is impossible for me to play drums or piano. I am not in any 'distressed' state; stuff happens in life." However, in 2010 Collins alluded to feelings of depression and low self-esteem in recent years, claiming in an interview that he had contemplated committing suicide, but he resisted for the sake of his children.

In October 2014, Collins told John Wilson on BBC Radio 4's Front Row that he still could not play the drums; he said the problem was not arthritis but an undiagnosed nerve problem where he was unable to "grip the sticks".

Honorary degrees
Collins has received several honorary doctorates in recognition of his work in music and also for his personal interests. In 1987, he received an honorary doctorate of fine arts at Fairleigh Dickinson University. In 1991, he received an honorary doctorate of music at the Berklee College of Music. Then on 12 May 2012, he received an honorary doctorate of history at the McMurry University in Abilene, Texas, for his research and collection of Texas Revolution artefacts and documents (see Activism section).

Politics
Collins has often been mentioned erroneously in the British media as being a supporter of the Conservative Party and an opponent of the Labour Party. This derives from the famous article in The Sun, printed on the day of the 1992 UK general election, titled If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights, which stated that Collins was among several celebrities who were planning to leave Britain in the event of a Labour victory.

Collins is sometimes reported in the British press to have left the UK and moved to Switzerland in protest at the Labour Party's victory in the 1997 general election. Shortly before the 2005 election (when Collins was living in Switzerland), Labour supporter Noel Gallagher was quoted: "Vote Labour. If you don't and the Tories get in, Phil Collins is threatening to come back and live here. And let's face it, none of us want that." However, Collins has since stated that although he did once claim many years earlier that he might leave Britain if most of his income was taken in tax, which was Labour Party policy at that time for top earners, he has never been a Conservative Party supporter and he left Britain for Switzerland in 1994 purely because he started a relationship with a woman who lived there. He said of Gallagher: "I don't care if he likes my music or not. I do care if he starts telling people I'm a wanker because of my politics. It's an opinion based on an old misunderstood quote."

Despite his statement that he did not leave Britain for tax purposes, Collins was one of several super-rich figures living in tax havens who were singled out for criticism in a report by the charity Christian Aid in 2008. The Independent included Collins as one of their "ten celebrity tax exiles", erroneously repeating that he had left the country when Labour won the 1997 general election and that he threatened to return if the Conservatives won in 2005. Referring to the 1997 general election in his article "Famous men and their misunderstood politics" for MSN, Hugh Wilson stated: "Labour won it in a landslide, which just goes to show the influence pop stars really wield". He also wrote that Collins's reported comments and subsequent move to Switzerland led to "accusations of hypocrisy" since he had "bemoaned the plight of the homeless in the song 'Another Day in Paradise'", and "made him an easy target when future elections came round".

Questioned about his politics by Mark Lawson in an interview broadcast in 2009, Collins said: "My father was Conservative but it wasn't quite the same, I don't think, when he was alive. Politics never loomed large in our family anyway. I think the politics of the country were very different then."

The Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott song "When I Get Back to Blighty", from their 2014 album What Have We Become?, made reference to Collins as "a prisoner to his tax returns".

Other interests
Collins has a long-standing interest in the Alamo. He has collected hundreds of artefacts related to the famous 1836 battle in San Antonio, Texas, narrated a light and sound show about the Alamo, and spoken at related events. His passion for the Battle of the Alamo has also led him to write the book The Alamo and Beyond: A Collector's Journey, ISBN 978-1-933337-50-0, published in 2012. A short film was released in 2013 called Phil Collins and the Wild Frontier which captures Collins on a book tour in June 2012. On 26 June 2014, a press conference was held from The Alamo, where Collins spoke, announcing that he was donating his entire collection to The Alamo via the State of Texas. On 11 March 2015, in honour of his donation, Collins was named an honorary Texan by the state legislature.

In common with Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton, Collins is also a model railway enthusiast.