Lily Collins

Lily Collins

Born March 18, 1989 in Guildford, Surrey, England, UK
Birth Name Lily Jane Collins
Height 5' 5" (1.65 m)

Lily Jane Collins was born in Guildford, Surrey, England. Her father is English musician Phil Collins, while her mother, Jill Tavelman, who is from Los Angeles, California, was president of the Beverly Hills Women's Club for three terms. Her maternal grandfather was a Canadian Jewish immigrant who owned a men's clothing store[which?] in Beverly Hills, California for many years Lily moved with her mother to LA at the age of five, after her parents split up. She is of Russian Jewish (from her maternal grandfather), English, and German descent.

Collins is the half-sister of musician Simon Collins from her father's first marriage, and Nicholas and Matthew Collins from her father's third marriage. As a teenager Collins suffered from an eating disorder that she later revealed in her book Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me.

Her first screen role was at the age of two in the BBC series Growing Pains, in 1992. Collins performed at the Youth Academy for Dramatic Arts as a child, but her main interest was journalism. She graduated from the Harvard-Westlake School, and attended the USC, where she majored in broadcast journalism. She began writing a column ("NY Confidential") for the British magazine Elle Girl in her teens as well as contributing to Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and the Los Angeles Times magazines.