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In the 1970s, Pauline Collins appeared as a clever, witty, and appealingly charming performer. She became a familiar figure on either side of the sea thanks to the smash hit British TV show the Upstairs Downstairs series, which was the period drama of its era.

Her role was the character Sarah, a spirited yet sensitive parlour maid with a questionable history. Sarah had a romance with the attractive chauffeur Thomas the chauffeur, acted by Collins’s actual spouse, the actor John Alderton. This turned into a television couple that the public loved, continuing into spinoff shows like the Thomas and Sarah series 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 liberating, cheeky yet charming story opened the door for subsequent successes like Calendar Girls and the Mamma Mia movies. It was a buoyant, comical, bright film with a wonderful role for a mature female lead, broaching the subject of feminine sensuality that was not limited by traditional male perspectives about modest young women.

Her portrayal of Shirley prefigured the emerging discussion about midlife changes and women who won’t resign themselves to being overlooked.

Originating on Stage to Screen

It started from Collins taking on the lead role of a an era in playwright Willy Russell's 1986 theater production: Shirley Valentine, the desiring and surprisingly passionate everywoman heroine of an fantasy middle-aged story.

She was hailed as the celebrity of London theater and the Broadway stage and was then triumphantly selected in the smash-hit movie adaptation. This very much followed the comparable transition from theater to film of actress Julie Walters in Russell’s 1980 theater piece, the play Educating Rita.

The Narrative of The Film's Heroine

The film's protagonist is a down-to-earth scouse housewife who is tired with life in her 40s in a dull, unimaginative country with boring, dull people. So when she receives the possibility at a no-cost trip in the Mediterranean, she takes it with enthusiasm and – to the astonishment of the dull British holidaymaker she’s accompanied by – continues once it’s finished to live the real thing away from the vacation spot, which means a wonderfully romantic escapade with the charming resident, the character Costas, portrayed with an outrageous moustache and dialect by actor Tom Conti.

Sassy, sharing the heroine is always addressing the audience to tell us what she’s pondering. It earned loud laughter in cinemas all over the United Kingdom when Costas tells her that he appreciates her stretch marks and she remarks to us: “Men are full of nonsense, aren't they?”

Subsequent Roles

Post-Shirley, the actress continued to have a active professional life on the stage and on television, including appearances on Doctor Who, but she was not as supported by the cinema where there didn’t seem to be a screenwriter in the class of Russell who could give her a genuine lead part.

She starred in filmmaker Roland Joffé's decent set in Calcutta drama, the movie City of Joy, in 1992 and featured as a British missionary and POW in Japan in director Bruce Beresford's Paradise Road in the late 90s. In filmmaker Rodrigo García's trans drama, the film from 2011 Albert Nobbs, Collins returned, in a way, to the class-divided environment in which she played a below-stairs maid.

However, she discovered herself repeatedly cast in condescending and overly sentimental silver-years films about old people, which were not worthy of her, such as nursing home stories like the film Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War and Quartet, as well as ropey French-set film The Time of Their Lives with Joan Collins.

A Minor Role in Fun

Filmmaker Woody Allen provided her a genuine humorous part (although a minor role) in his You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, in which she played the questionable fortune teller referenced by the title.

However, in cinema, her performance as Shirley gave her a extraordinary period of glory.