John Lawrence Collins Jr., "Larry Collins" was born in West Hartford, Connecticut and educated at the Loomis Chaffee Institute in Windsor, Connecticut. He graduated from Yale as a BA in 1951. He worked in the advertising department of Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio, before being conscripted into the United States Army. While serving in the public affairs office of the Allied Headquarters in Paris, from 1953 to 1955, he met Dominique Lapierre with whom he wrote a string of best-sellers over a 43 year collaboration.

In 1965, Collins and Dominique Lapierre published their first joint work, Is Paris Burning?, a tale of the Nazi occupation of the French capital during World War II. In 1966 Collins married Egyptian princess Nadia Sultan. They had two sons, Michael and Lawrence.
In 1967 the duo co-authored Or I'll Dress you in Mourning followed by O Jerusalem!, Freedom at Midnight, The Fifth Horseman, Is New York Burning?
In 1985, Collins authored Fall From Grace (without Lapierre); Maze in 1989, Black Eagles in 1992 and The Road to Armageddon, also known as, Tomorrow Belongs To Us in 1998.