Lorrie Collins


Lawrencine May "Lorrie" Collins was an American country, rockabilly and rock and roll singer. Beginning in the mid-1950s, she and her brother, Larry Collins, performed as the Collins Kids.

Early life

Born in Creek County, Oklahoma, near Sapulpa, Collins and her brother Larry were individually musically talented as young children. Their parents relocated them to Southern California to further develop their music. They soon became paired as a musical duo.

Career

In the late 1950s, Collins was the girlfriend of television star and teen idol Ricky Nelson on both the Nelson family's top-rated show The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet and in private life. She made her debut on January 22, 1958 in an episode entitled "The Picture in Rick's Notebook" in which she played the dual role of twin sisters. In this first episode, Nelson and Lorrie performed a duet of "Just Because", which had been one of the Collins Kids' signature songs. A month later, her brother made a guest appearance on the show in an episode entitled "Who Is Betty?", which aired on February 19, 1958.
In 1959, when Collins was 17, she married Stu Carnall, who was Johnny Cash's manager and twice her age. She continued acting and singing with Nelson on television and recording and touring with her brother until 1961 when she gave birth to her first child. The Collins duo continued to perform into the 1960s, appearing as regulars in the 1963 Canadian music series Star Route, and later made appearances on The Jackie Gleason Show and The Hollywood Palace as late as 1967. Many of their performances on Town Hall Party were released on DVD by Bear Family Records of Germany; a CD of their work on the show Rockin' on T.V. was released in 1993 on the Krazy Kat label in Europe.
With her brother, Collins is a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.
She and her brother performed together again in 1992 and 1993, mostly at music festivals.

Death

Collins died on August 4, 2018 in Reno, Nevada from complications of a fall at the age of 76.