Bo Derek was originally named Mary Cathleen Collins. She was born on November 20, 1956 in Long Beach, California. Her parents were Paul and Norma Collins, an executive and a hairdresser. Derek is best known for being an actress although she started her career as a model.

At age 16 she started doing modeling work in order to pay off a new surf board. She ended up liking it and soon got herself an agent. While going to various auditions she was introduced to John Derek, a filming director who was 30 years older than her. The two fell in love and John soon divorced his wife, Linda Evans, also an actress. Bo and John ran away to Germany so that they could be together. In the United States he would have been charged with statutory rape due to the fact that Bo was still a 16 year old minor. After she turned 18, they returned to the U.S. and were married. They stayed married until he died in 1998.

Bo Derek's film appearances include movies such as "10" (1979), "Tarzan", "The Ape Man" (1981), "Bolero" (1984) and "Tommy Boy" (1995), to name a few. With the release of "10" received a Golden Globe and image instantly became that of a sex symbol. It was this film that produced the infamous scene where she comes jogging out of the ocean with her cornrow-braided blonde hair swinging about. This scene has often been copied in other movies and TV shows. She has been portrayed in Playboy magazine several times, the first time being in March 1980. Derek is a horse lover who owns several Iberian horses and is involved with the Animal Welfare Institute, helping in their national campaign to put a stop to horse slaughter. Even her autobiography "Riding Lessons: Everything That Matters I Learned From Horses" her love for them.