Frank’s first “role”” was a six month old “”theatre mascot”” at a tent theatre in Granville, Ohio. His father, John, was an actor and playwright and his mother, Peg, directed him in a number of plays while he was growing up in Virginia and Ohio. As a young boy, Frank assisted his father when he toured with his one man Abraham Lincoln show. His father was selected to play Lincoln for the centennial celebration of Lincoln’s first inauguration in Washington, DC ; Frank played young Tad Lincoln.Frank trained at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, earned his BA in theatre at San Francisco State University, helped establish a summer theatre company in the Sierra Nevadas then went on to earn an MFA in acting at UC San Diego. Before Frank began his professional career in acting, he worked as a forest fire fighter, diaper service dispatcher and substitute teacher. Appearing in over 150 productions, Frank has worked off Broadway and in regional theaters in Boston, Denver and California. His theatrical roles have ranged from “”Puck”” in Midsummer’s Nights Dream to “”Miss Havisham”” in Great Expectations to “”Jacob Marley”” in Christmas Carol. Frank is a founding member of Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice, California, which has won over 25 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards.Frank began his film and television career when he moved to Los Angeles in 1984. He is perhaps best known as “”Horace Bing,”” the hapless telegraph operator on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993) and “”Wash Hogwallop”” in “”O Brother Where Art Thou?Frank is married to actress, Laura Gardner.”
Frank Collison
Movies
The Hero
Lee Hayden is a veteran actor of Westerns whose career’s best years are behind him after his one really great film, “The Hero”. Now, scraping by with voice-overs for commercials, Lee learns that he has a terminal prognosis of pancreatic cancer. Unable to bring himself to tell anyone about it,…
Fun Facts
He played many diverse roles throughout college and at the American Conservatory Theatre, and is a founding member of the Pacific Resident Theatre Ensemble, which is a winner of the L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Continuous Achievement. He starred in the group's productions of The Beggar's Opera and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Frank Collison began his career when his actor father and director mother included him in their production at the Tent Theater at Denison University in Granville, Ohio when he was six months old.
Collison was born in Evanston, Illinois, and raised in Richmond, Virginia and Mansfield, Ohio.
First cousin of actor Stephen Collins.