Paul Collins
Biography
Biography
If one were to see the English actor Paul Collins as a gruff old congressman in "Evan Almighty," in which Morgan Freeman's God makes Steve Carell a modern-day Moses, or as one of Max Minghella's professors in the live-action graphic-novel movie "Art School Confidential," one probably would not immediately associate him with an eight-year-old boy with a top hat, glasses, black umbrella, and ability to fly. As an adolescent, Collins provided the voice to Wendy's bespectacled brother John in Disney's animated classic "Peter Pan." But this movie is but one credit in the actor's long career, which, at that point, had already lasted for almost a decade. In one of his earliest films, "Challenge to Lassie," the young actor managed to work with both a canine and Edmund Gwynn. After his voice changed, he found a wealth of work on TV in shows ranging from "The Jack Benny Program" to "Hawaii Five-O." He took a decade-long break from the screen that encompassed all of the 1970s, but he came back to work in films like the mystery "Without a Trace" and the McCarthy-era drama "Guilty by Suspicion," starring Robert De Niro. In the made-for-TV "George Washington II: The Forging of a Nation," Collins played John Adams and in "JAG," a military-themed courtroom drama, he was secretary of the navy for a bevy of episodes.