Brixton boy made good. Born the first child to Anne Patricia a ballet dancer and Ken William Collins a musician in an upstairs flat in Brixton south London close to the prison. There were two additions to the family Ian his brother and then Clare his sister. It was a tough upbringing with many challenges on the way. The family moved from Brixton to nearby Streatham where Mark although a good achiever initially at school, soon found himself drawn to street gangs and the local Romany gypsy site also taking up boxing at 14 years old. After being moved around schools and often in trouble with the local authorities including the police, left education early to make his Mark on the world. After many years working as a bricklayer, minder and running a car breakers yard plus many other varied occupations Mark turned first to writing/film making (working in different positions on the crew) and then acting. You could say it was fate as he had no intention of taking that path until asked to jump from behind the camera, to in front of it playing a bar man with a few lines on a film called Brown shot on 35mm, when an actor failed to show one day. Mark slowly made the transition to acting after being told on a number of occasions that it was something that he should pursue and at the tender age of 51 started to really focus in that area.