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During the seventies, Pauline Collins emerged as a intelligent, witty, and cherubically sexy actress. She developed into a recognisable figure on both sides of the ocean thanks to the hugely popular British TV show Upstairs, Downstairs, which was the equivalent of Downton Abbey back then.

She portrayed Sarah, a bold but fragile housemaid with a dodgy past. Sarah had a romance with the good-looking driver Thomas, acted by Collins’s off-screen partner, John Alderton. This turned into a television couple that the public loved, which carried on into spin-off series like the Thomas and Sarah series and the show No, Honestly.

The Highlight of Brilliance: Shirley Valentine

But her moment of greatness occurred on the silver screen as Shirley Valentine. This freeing, cheeky yet charming journey opened the door for later hits like Calendar Girls and the Mamma Mia series. It was a cheerful, funny, optimistic story with a wonderful role for a seasoned performer, broaching the theme of feminine sensuality that was not limited by conventional views about modest young women.

Her portrayal of Shirley anticipated the new debate about perimenopause and women who won’t resign themselves to being overlooked.

Originating on Stage to Film

It originated from Collins playing the main character of a an era in playwright Willy Russell's stage show from 1986: Shirley Valentine, the desiring and unexpectedly sensual relatable female protagonist of an getaway comedy about adulthood.

She turned into the toast of London’s West End and New York's Broadway and was then victoriously selected in the highly successful movie adaptation. This very much mirrored the similar transition from theater to film of actress Julie Walters in Russell’s 1980 theater piece, Educating Rita.

The Story of Shirley Valentine

Her character Shirley is a realistic Liverpool homemaker who is bored with existence in her forties in a tedious, unimaginative nation with boring, predictable people. So when she wins the possibility at a no-cost trip in Greece, she takes it with both hands and – to the amazement of the dull British holidaymaker she’s accompanied by – remains once it’s finished to experience the genuine culture outside the vacation spot, which means a gloriously sexy adventure with the mischievous resident, the character Costas, acted with an outrageous moustache and accent by Tom Conti.

Sassy, open the heroine is always addressing the audience to inform us what she’s pondering. It received big laughs in movie houses all over the UK when her love interest tells her that he adores her stretch marks and she remarks to us: “Don't men talk a lot of rubbish?”

Later Career

After Valentine, Pauline Collins continued to have a vibrant work on the theater and on television, including roles on Dr Who, but she was not as supported by the cinema where there didn’t seem to be a author in the league of the playwright who could give her a genuine lead part.

She starred in Roland Joffé’s passable set in Calcutta drama, the movie City of Joy, in the year 1992 and featured as a UK evangelist and Japanese prisoner of war in director Bruce Beresford's Paradise Road in the late 90s. In director Rodrigo García's transgender story, the film from 2011 Albert Nobbs, Collins came back, in a way, to the Upstairs, Downstairs world in which she played a servant-level domestic worker.

Yet she realized herself often chosen in dismissive and cloying elderly stories about the aged, which were not worthy of her, such as care-home dramas like Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War and Quartet, as well as subpar set in France film the movie The Time of Their Lives with Joan Collins.

A Small Comeback in Humor

Woody Allen offered her a real comedy role (though a minor role) in his You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, in which she played the questionable fortune teller hinted at by the movie's title.

But in the movies, the Shirley Valentine role gave her a remarkable time to shine.