Collins was a regular on talk shows and a panelist on the game show I've Got a Secret. She once hypnotized Lucille Ball on "I Love Lucy". And she appeared in the movie Divorce American Style.
For years, she ran a nightclub on L.A.'s Sunset Strip, where she performed her hypnosis act and taught self-hypnosis to audience members struggling to overcome psychological problems or nicotine addiction. Olympic skater Dorothy Hamill was one of her serious students. Collins herself had suffered a mental breakdown as a child and been helped by hypnosis.
"She's the one who brought (hypnosis)...to the public's mind," a friend, Carol Reed, told the Associated Press, "by her honesty and by not letting people think she had power over them."