Just as Popeye had his Olive Oyl, the swashbuckling seaman from The Adventures of Sinbad has his Maeve. Or perhaps not. As portrayed by Jacqueline Collen, the Irish-Celtic sorcerer's apprentice who becomes Sinbad's partner and confidante is more of a platonic post-feminist than the port maidens of yore.
"She's at a place in her life where she doesn't want to get involved with men," says Jacqueline, a 5'10" strawberry blonde who puts Olive Oyl to shame. "When Sinbad flirts, it drives her up a wall!" Jacqueline sees much of herself in her character -- an independent, strong, compassionate farm girl -- and is thankful after a succession of helpless female roles. "I've played the victim in almost everything I've ever done. This is a wonderful change of pace."
While television audiences can see her in first-run syndication this fall, Jacqueline will also appear in the independent motion picture Baton Rouge, an ensemble drama shot on location in Louisiana. Guided by writer and first-time director Brad Sanders, the project is a film noir depiction of relationships and how people's lives can become completely twisted by jealousy.
Jacqueline's childhood was marked by contrasts: born on Fort Ord army base in Monterey, California, spending her formative years in Orange County, California, then moving to a "non-working horse ranch" in Woodland Park, Colorado at age nine. Single-handedly, Jacqueline boarded horses, spent quality time in the woods and became a lifelong animal lover in the company of dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, pet rats, hermit crabs, horses, cows and many others.
Owing to her height ( 5'9" by age twelve) and avoidance of social cliques, Jacqueline recalls being "the most unpopular kid in school." Uninterested in acting, she nonetheless enjoyed singing in such musicals as The King and I, The Wizard of Oz and My Fair Lady and also tested her pipes in state choral competitions.
A short-term photographic memory allowed Jacqueline to graduate as a junior, with straight A's, and a full scholarship paved her way to the University of Northern Colorado. Having worked for a veterinarian as a teenager, she struggled between studying music and veterinary medicine. Her struggle was short. After one semester she found herself bored with the curriculum and quit.
The gawky, too-tall adolescent had, by now, fully bloomed, and Jacqueline was soon discovered in Denver by a modeling scout and whisked away to Paris a week later. Within a year her image could be found in nearly every major French and German magazine. A broken heart led her to New York, where she also appeared in Cosmopolitan, Elle, Mademoiselle, Glamour and other leading publications.
Jacqueline gave up her modeling career when she married Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen. The couple had a son, Rory, in 1990. A year later, she decided to begin working again and acting seemed a natural progression.
After studying at the Lee Strasberg Studios in Los Angeles, she appeared in commercials for Miller, Chic, Suave and other top advertisers before earning a guest starring role on "Baywatch." A flurry of other guest star roles followed on such series and pilots as "Blue Skies," "Renegade," "The Real Thing," "High Tide" and "Live Shot." On "Hercules" she portrayed a young bride kidnapped on her wedding day by a centaur and rescued by the demigod himself. More recently Jacqueline starred as an ex-supermodel opposite Jack Scalia in the pilot "PCH" and guest starred on "Silk Stalkings," the Fox telefilm "If Looks Could Kill" and as a duplicitous killer on USA's "Pacific Blue." Jacqueline was also the lead in the short film Mott Street.
With South Africa substituting for the ancient world of Bagdad, Jacqueline embraces a childlike enthusiasm for the "magical, fantastic" world of "Sinbad" as well as the challenge of her first television series. "Identify the character's needs and strive to fulfill them" is the axiom that has guided her approach toward acting, and Jacqueline Collen is very clear about her own needs. "I've found the work that I love," she says unabashedly. "I love the suspension of life for two minutes when you're on the set. I will sit in a trailer all day long and go though hours of costume fittings and make-up just for those two minutes."
Jacqueline divorced in 1995. A single mother, she currently lives in Los Angeles with her son, three dogs, and two cats.
