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During the 1970s, this gifted performer rose as a smart, funny, and appealingly charming female actor. She developed into a familiar celebrity on both sides of the sea thanks to the smash hit UK television series Upstairs, Downstairs, which was the equivalent of Downton Abbey back then.

She portrayed the character Sarah, a spirited yet sensitive servant with a questionable history. Her character had a connection with the handsome chauffeur Thomas, played by Collins’s off-screen partner, the actor John Alderton. It was a on-screen partnership that audiences adored, continuing into spin-off series like the Thomas and Sarah series and No Honestly.

The Highlight of Excellence: Shirley Valentine

Yet the highlight of her success occurred on the big screen as Shirley Valentine. This empowering, mischievous but endearing adventure opened the door for subsequent successes like Calendar Girls and the Mamma Mia!. It was a cheerful, humorous, sunshine-y story with a wonderful character for a seasoned performer, addressing the subject of feminine sensuality that was not limited by conventional views about demure youth.

Her portrayal of Shirley foreshadowed the growing conversation about perimenopause and females refusing to accept to being overlooked.

From Stage to Film

The story began from Collins playing the starring part of a lifetime in the writer Willy Russell's 1986 theater production: the play Shirley Valentine, the longing and unexpectedly sensual relatable female protagonist of an fantasy comedy about adulthood.

She turned into the toast of the West End and New York's Broadway and was then triumphantly cast in the blockbuster cinematic rendition. This largely paralleled the similar transition from theater to film of actress Julie Walters in Russell’s 1980 play, the play Educating Rita.

The Narrative of Shirley's Journey

Her character Shirley is a realistic wife from Liverpool who is bored with existence in her 40s in a tedious, uninspired place with monotonous, dull individuals. So when she gets the chance at a no-cost trip in Greece, she seizes it with both hands and – to the amazement of the boring British holidaymaker she’s traveled with – remains once it’s over to live the genuine culture beyond the resort area, which means a wonderfully romantic escapade with the roguish resident, Costas, played with an bold mustache and accent by Tom Conti.

Cheeky, confiding the heroine is always speaking directly to viewers to inform us what she’s pondering. It received loud laughter in theaters all over the Britain when her love interest tells her that he loves her stretch marks and she remarks to the audience: “Men are full of nonsense, aren't they?”

Later Career

Post-Shirley, Pauline Collins continued to have a lively work on the stage and on the small screen, including parts on Dr Who, but she was not as supported by the film industry where there seemed not to be a screenwriter in the class of the playwright who could give her a real starring role.

She starred in Roland Joffé’s passable set in Calcutta drama, City of Joy, in the year 1992 and starred as a British missionary and captive in wartime Japan in director Bruce Beresford's Paradise Road in the late 90s. In director Rodrigo García's transgender story, the 2011 movie the Albert Nobbs film, Collins returned, in a way, to the Upstairs, Downstairs world in which she played a below-stairs domestic worker.

But she found herself frequently selected in dismissive and overly sentimental elderly stories about seniors, which were not worthy of her, such as nursing home stories like Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War and Quartet, as well as ropey French-set film The Time of Their Lives with the performer Joan Collins.

A Minor Role in Fun

Woody Allen did give her a true funny character (though a small one) in his the film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, in which she played the dodgy psychic alluded to by the movie's title.

But in the movies, her performance as Shirley gave her a tremendous period of glory.