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In the 70s, Pauline Collins emerged as a intelligent, humorous, and appealingly charming female actor. She became a recognisable figure on each side of the Atlantic thanks to the blockbuster UK television series Upstairs, Downstairs, which was the equivalent of Downton Abbey back then.

Her role was Sarah, a bold but fragile parlour maid with a shady background. Sarah had a relationship with the good-looking chauffeur Thomas, acted by Collins’s real-life husband, John Alderton. This turned into a on-screen partnership that audiences adored, extending into spin-off series like the Thomas and Sarah series and No Honestly.

Her Moment of Greatness: The Shirley Valentine Film

Yet the highlight of her career occurred on the cinema as Shirley Valentine. This freeing, mischievous but endearing journey set the stage for future favorites like Calendar Girls and the Mamma Mia movies. It was a cheerful, comical, optimistic comedy with a excellent part for a mature female lead, broaching the topic of feminine sensuality that did not conform by traditional male perspectives about modest young women.

Her portrayal of Shirley prefigured the emerging discussion about women's health and ladies who decline to invisibility.

From Stage to Film

It started from Collins taking on the starring part of a her career in Willy Russell’s stage show from 1986: Shirley Valentine, the desiring and surprisingly passionate relatable female protagonist of an escapist comedy about adulthood.

She was hailed as the toast of London theater and the Broadway stage and was then victoriously cast in the smash-hit film version. This very much mirrored the comparable path from play to movie of the performer Julie Walters in Russell’s stage work from 1980, the play Educating Rita.

The Story of The Film's Heroine

Her character Shirley is a practical wife from Liverpool who is bored with existence in her 40s in a dull, unimaginative place with monotonous, dull individuals. So when she gets the possibility at a free holiday in the Mediterranean, she seizes it with eagerness and – to the astonishment of the unexciting English traveler she’s accompanied by – continues once it’s finished to live the authentic life outside the resort area, which means a wonderfully romantic fling with the mischievous local, Costas, acted with an bold mustache and accent by Tom Conti.

Sassy, sharing Shirley is always speaking directly to viewers to inform us what she’s thinking. It received loud laughter in cinemas all over the UK when Costas tells her that he appreciates her stretch marks and she says to the audience: “Men are full of nonsense, aren't they?”

Post-Valentine Work

After Valentine, the actress continued to have a active professional life on the stage and on TV, including roles on the Doctor Who series, but she was not as fortunate by the movies where there seemed not to be a screenwriter in the league of the playwright who could give her a real starring role.

She appeared in Roland Joffé’s decent Calcutta-set drama, City of Joy, in the year 1992 and featured as a British missionary and captive in wartime Japan in Bruce Beresford’s the film Paradise Road in 1997. In director Rodrigo García's trans drama, the film from 2011 Albert Nobbs, Collins returned, in a way, to the servant-and-master setting in which she played a below-stairs domestic worker.

However, she discovered herself often chosen in condescending and overly sentimental older-age stories about the aged, which were not worthy of her, such as eldercare films like Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War and Quartet, as well as ropey located in France film The Time of Their Lives with Joan Collins.

A Minor Role in Humor

Filmmaker Woody Allen did give her a real comedy role (although a brief appearance) in his You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, in which she played the dodgy clairvoyant referenced by the movie's title.

But in the movies, her performance as Shirley gave her a remarkable time to shine.