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In the seventies, Pauline Collins appeared as a clever, funny, and cherubically sexy actress. She developed into a recognisable figure on each side of the ocean thanks to the hugely popular UK television series the Upstairs Downstairs series, which was the equivalent of Downton Abbey back then.

Her role was Sarah, a bold but fragile servant with a dodgy past. Sarah had a connection with the handsome driver Thomas the chauffeur, portrayed by Collins’s off-screen partner, the actor John Alderton. This became a TV marriage that the public loved, extending into follow-up programs like Thomas & Sarah and No Honestly.

The Peak of Brilliance: The Shirley Valentine Film

But her moment of greatness came on the cinema as the character Shirley Valentine. This freeing, mischievous but endearing story paved the way for later hits like the Calendar Girls film and the Mamma Mia series. It was a buoyant, humorous, sunshine-y comedy with a superb character for a mature female lead, addressing the topic of female sexuality that was not governed by conventional views about demure youth.

This iconic role foreshadowed the growing conversation about midlife changes and women who won’t resign themselves to invisibility.

Originating on Stage to Screen

It originated from Collins performing the starring part of a lifetime in playwright Willy Russell's 1986 stage play: Shirley Valentine, the desiring and unexpectedly sensual relatable female protagonist of an getaway comedy about adulthood.

She was hailed as the celebrity of London theater and Broadway and was then successfully chosen in the smash-hit cinematic rendition. This closely mirrored the alike stage-to-screen journey of actress Julie Walters in Russell’s 1980 play, Educating Rita.

The Plot of Shirley's Journey

Collins’s Shirley is a realistic Liverpool homemaker who is weary with life in her 40s in a tedious, uninspired nation with uninteresting, dull folk. So when she wins the possibility at a free holiday in the Greek islands, she takes it with eagerness and – to the amazement of the unexciting English traveler she’s gone with – remains once it’s over to experience the authentic life outside the vacation spot, which means a wonderfully romantic fling with the charming native, the character Costas, acted with an bold mustache and dialect by the performer Tom Conti.

Cheeky, sharing Shirley is always speaking directly to viewers to share with us what she’s thinking. It got loud laughter in movie houses all over the Britain when Costas tells her that he adores her body marks and she remarks to us: “Men are full of nonsense, aren't they?”

Subsequent Roles

Post-Shirley, the actress continued to have a lively professional life on the theater and on the small screen, including appearances on Doctor Who, but she was not as supported by the film industry where there appeared not to be a screenwriter in the caliber of Russell who could give her a genuine lead part.

She starred in Roland Joffé’s adequate located in Kolkata film, City of Joy, in 1992 and featured as a UK evangelist and POW in Japan in filmmaker Bruce Beresford's the film Paradise Road in the late 90s. In director Rodrigo García's trans drama, 2011’s Albert Nobbs, Collins returned, in a sense, to the class-divided world in which she played a downstairs housekeeper.

However, she discovered herself often chosen in patronizing and overly sentimental elderly entertainments about the aged, which were beneath her talents, such as nursing home stories like Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War and the movie Quartet, as well as subpar located in France film The Time of Their Lives with the performer Joan Collins.

A Brief Return in Fun

Woody Allen did give her a real comedy role (albeit a minor role) in his the film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, in which she played the shady fortune teller hinted at by the film's name.

However, in cinema, the Shirley Valentine role gave her a tremendous period of glory.