To star in a one-person play on London’s West End and Broadway and walk away with seven awards–including the Olivier and Tony Awards–is a rare achievement. To then star in the play’s film version and earn Oscar and Golden Globe nominations…well, that’s just what Pauline Collins did with Willy Russell’s comedy Shirley Valentine. Collins played an unappreciated Liverpool housewife who finds a new life and romance while on a Greek Islands vacation. The English actress, who died last week at 85, had a memorable career beyond Shirley on the stage, screen, and television.
Born in Southwest England’s Devon region in 1940, Collins set out in a academic career like her schoolteacher mother and headmaster father, but caught the acting bug in her early 20s. Studying at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, she made her West End stage debut in 1965’s The Passion Flower Hotel. Her first film role was as a striptease dancer in the 1966 exploitation drama Secrets of a Windmill Girl, but Collins wouldn’t be seen on the screen again for over two decades.
Throughout the late ’60s and ’70s Pauline divided her time between theatre and television. Her TV credits included appearances on Doctor Who alongside Second Doctor Patrick Troughton (she was offered the chance to become a regular companion but declined); the popular sitcom The Liver Birds; and as troubled parlourmaid Sarah Moffat in Upstairs, Downstairs and its spinoff, Thomas & Sarah, both of which featured her husband, actor John Alderton. They also co-starred in the anthology series Wodehouse Playhouse. On the London stage she was Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest and played multiple roles in Alan Ayckbourn’s Confusions.
After finding success with the 1989 movie iteration of Shirley Valentine, Collins picked up noteworthy roles in such films as Roland Joffé’s City of Joy (1992), Paradise Road (1997), Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010), Albert Nobbs (2011), Quartet (2012), and The Time of Their Lives (2017) with Joan Collins. On the small screen she co-starred with Alderton in 1988-92’s Forever Green and returned to Doctor Who, playing Queen Victoria opposite 10th Doctor David Tennant in 2006’s “Tooth and Claw.” Her final TV role was as Mrs. Gamp in the 2015 mash-up drama Dickensian.
Pauline’s stage farewell came as the Fairy Godmother in a 2007-08 Old Vic presentation of Cinderella. After living for several years with Parkinson’s disease, Collins passed away at a London care facility on November 5th. Calling her “a remarkable star,” her husband said of her, “What I saw was not only her brilliant range of diverse characters but her magic of bringing out the best in all of the people she worked with.”