Phil Collins was once described as “a byword for aural blandness”. This was a common critical view, yet Collins still acquired a fortune (estimated £300 million) and over 100 million record sales. His career success has not, however, been matched in his personal life. On Wednesday he announced that he had separated from his third wife, Orianne, mother of two of his five children.

Perhaps the marriage was doomed from the start. Collins was derided at the time for allegedly dumping his second wife, Jill Tavelman, by fax for Orianne, who is younger than his eldest daughter. Their first meeting — in an airport — was less than romantic, according to Collins: “I stomped past her because I was desperate to go to the loo.”

Collins states proudly that “I’ve never been glamorous, well-dressed or coiffed”, and that he resembles “a slightly hipper Cliff Richard, a middle-of-the-road do-gooder”. Now 55, Collins was born in Chiswick, West London, to an insurance broker and a theatrical agent. He played the Artful Dodger in Oliver! in the West End in 1964. But his first love was always his drum kit. In 1970 he answered an ad for a drummer in Melody Maker. The group was Genesis, and the audition was at Peter Gabriel’s parents’ house.

Genesis had huge global success, as did Collins’s concurrent solo career, which took off in 1981 with the album Face Value. Collins performed on Top of the Pops next to a tin of paint and a paintbrush, an allusion to the fact that his wife, Andrea, had recently run off with a decorator who was doing up their house. She in turn referred to him as a “heartless hypocrite”.

Collins went on to record a string of No 1 hits, including four in the US in 1985 alone, the year he performed at Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia. In the late 1980s Collins played the lead role in Buster, the movie about the Great Train Robber Buster Edwards, and won a Grammy (for his LP No Jacket Required).

In 1993 he recorded an emotionally bleak album, Both Sides, during his break-up with Jill. Public sympathy was limited, however, as he promptly jetted off, post-fax, to a Swiss tax haven with Orianne, leaving his young daughter Lily.

Collins left Genesis in 1996 and has since written film music for Disney, winning an Oscar in 2000 for Tarzan. The Broadway version opens on March 24. Mr Nice Guy says he will continue to live in Switzerland. He admits that he misses a British “pint down the pub”, but it’s all right as “I get my HP Sauce, Marmite and Cheddar cheese sent over”.