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During the 1970s, Pauline Collins rose as a clever, witty, and cherubically sexy performer. She became a well-known celebrity on both sides of the sea thanks to the smash hit British TV show the Upstairs Downstairs series, which was the equivalent of Downton Abbey back then.

She played the character Sarah, a pert-yet-vulnerable servant with a dodgy past. Her character had a romance with the good-looking chauffeur Thomas, acted by Collins’s actual spouse, the actor John Alderton. This became a TV marriage that the public loved, which carried on into follow-up programs like Thomas & Sarah and the show No, Honestly.

The Peak of Greatness: Shirley Valentine

However, the pinnacle of her success occurred on the silver screen as Shirley Valentine. This empowering, cheeky yet charming adventure opened the door for future favorites like the Calendar Girls film and the Mamma Mia!. It was a cheerful, humorous, optimistic story with a wonderful character for a seasoned performer, broaching the theme of women's desires that was not governed by conventional views about modest young women.

This iconic role anticipated the emerging discussion about women's health and females refusing to accept to being overlooked.

Originating on Stage to Film

It originated from Collins performing the main character of a an era in Willy Russell’s stage show from 1986: Shirley Valentine, the longing and surprisingly passionate ordinary woman lead of an escapist midlife comedy.

She turned into the toast of the West End and the Broadway stage and was then victoriously cast in the blockbuster cinematic rendition. This closely mirrored the similar transition from theater to film of actress Julie Walters in Russell’s 1980 theater piece, Educating Rita.

The Plot of Shirley Valentine

Her character Shirley is a down-to-earth wife from Liverpool who is tired with life in her forties in a boring, uninspired country with uninteresting, unimaginative individuals. So when she wins the chance at a complimentary vacation in the Greek islands, she grabs it with both hands and – to the surprise of the dull British holidaymaker she’s traveled with – continues once it’s over to experience the real thing beyond the resort area, which means a wonderfully romantic escapade with the charming native, Costas, played with an bold mustache and speech by the performer Tom Conti.

Bold, open Shirley is always breaking the fourth wall to inform us what she’s thinking. It got big laughs in theaters all over the UK when her love interest tells her that he loves her stretch marks and she says to viewers: “Aren’t men full of shit?”

Post-Valentine Work

Post-Shirley, the actress continued to have a active career on the theater and on television, including appearances on the Doctor Who series, but she was less well served by the cinema where there appeared not to be a screenwriter in the league of Willy Russell who could give her a true main character.

She was in director Roland Joffé's decent located in Kolkata film, the movie City of Joy, in the year 1992 and played the lead as a British missionary and Japanese prisoner of war in Bruce Beresford’s Paradise Road in the late 90s. In Rodrigo García’s film about gender, the film from 2011 Albert Nobbs, Collins returned, in a sense, to the class-divided world in which she played a downstairs domestic worker.

But she found herself often chosen in patronizing and cloying silver-years stories about old people, which were beneath her talents, such as nursing home stories like Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War and Quartet, as well as ropey set in France film The Time of Their Lives with Joan Collins.

A Small Comeback in Fun

Woody Allen provided her a genuine humorous part (albeit a small one) in his the film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, in which she played the questionable clairvoyant hinted at by the movie's title.

However, in cinema, her performance as Shirley gave her a tremendous moment in the sun.