In 1977, director Michael Anderson cast Derek in a small role in his horror film Orca - The Killer Whale (1977), in which Derek's character has her leg bitten off by the title character. By this time, she had come to be known professionally as Bo Derek: an amalgam of her former stage name Bo Shane and married name Derek. In 1976, the then-19-year-old Collins married John Derek. The film remained unreleased until 1981, at which time it received negative notices. John Derek twice re-edited the film in an effort to sell it to major studios. Capitalizing on Collins' beauty, Derek worked into the film several risqué scenes, including brief nudity. Portraying a young Greek girl named Anastasia, Collins was urged to dye her hair brown so as to better look the part of the character. In 1973, Collins began filming on John Derek's Fantasies, a low-budget, English-language romantic drama shot in Greece. The couple moved to Germany, where John Derek would not be subject to prosecution under California statutory rape laws, because Collins was under the age of consent. Not long after the two started dating, Derek divorced his wife, actress Linda Evans. While attending Narbonne High School in Los Angeles at age 16 in 1973, Collins became sexually involved with John Derek, a married man 30 years her senior. I started to go back to school, and I was really enjoying it, and then I went to go do this film with John in Greece . I spent about a month going to the beach surfing and sunbathing while I was supposed to be in school: when I got caught, my mom was furious. She remarked in a 1985 interview on Late Night with David Letterman: Patton Continuation School, both in Harbor City, California. She has two sisters and a brother.Ĭollins attended Narbonne High School and George S. Collins' parents divorced, and her mother remarried, to stunt performer Bobby Bass. Her father, Paul Collins, was a Hobie Cat executive, and her mother, Norma (née White), was a make-up artist and hairdresser to Ann-Margret. Derek was born Mary Cathleen Collins in Long Beach, California.