The Shirley Valentine Role Gave This Talented Actress a Character to Equal Her Skill. She Seized It with Flair and Glee

During the 70s, this gifted performer emerged as a clever, witty, and cherubically sexy performer. She became a well-known figure on each side of the sea thanks to the hugely popular British TV show the Upstairs Downstairs series, which was the Downton Abbey of its day.

She played Sarah, a spirited yet sensitive housemaid with a dodgy past. Sarah had a romance with the handsome chauffeur Thomas, acted by Collins’s real-life husband, John Alderton. It was a on-screen partnership that audiences adored, which carried on into follow-up programs like the Thomas and Sarah series and No, Honestly.

Her Moment of Excellence: Shirley Valentine

However, the pinnacle of greatness occurred on the big screen as the character Shirley Valentine. This freeing, naughty-but-nice adventure set the stage for future favorites like Calendar Girls and the Mamma Mia series. It was a cheerful, comical, sunshine-y story with a wonderful part for a older actress, tackling the subject of female sexuality that was not limited by usual male ideas about demure youth.

This iconic role foreshadowed the emerging discussion about perimenopause and females refusing to accept to invisibility.

Starting in Theater to Screen

It originated from Collins playing the starring part of a her career in Willy Russell’s 1986 stage play: the play Shirley Valentine, the desiring and surprisingly passionate relatable female protagonist of an fantasy midlife comedy.

She turned into the celebrity of London theater and New York's Broadway and was then successfully cast in the blockbuster cinematic rendition. This closely paralleled the similar stage-to-screen journey of Julie Walters in Russell’s 1980 theater piece, the play Educating Rita.

The Plot of Shirley's Journey

Her character Shirley is a practical Liverpool homemaker who is tired with existence in her 40s in a dull, unimaginative place with monotonous, unimaginative folk. So when she gets the chance at a no-cost trip in Greece, she seizes it with enthusiasm and – to the astonishment of the unexciting British holidaymaker she’s accompanied by – stays on once it’s ended to live the genuine culture beyond the vacation spot, which means a wonderfully romantic adventure with the mischievous native, Costas, played with an striking mustache and speech by actor Tom Conti.

Cheeky, sharing Shirley is always addressing the audience to inform us what she’s feeling. It got loud laughter in cinemas all over the UK when Costas tells her that he appreciates her skin lines and she says to the audience: “Aren’t men full of shit?”

Subsequent Roles

After Valentine, Pauline Collins continued to have a active work on the theater and on the small screen, including roles on Doctor Who, but she was less well served by the movies where there seemed not to be a author in the caliber of Willy Russell who could give her a genuine lead part.

She appeared in filmmaker Roland Joffé's adequate Calcutta-set story, City of Joy, in 1992 and starred as a British missionary and captive in wartime Japan in director Bruce Beresford's the film 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 below-stairs domestic worker.

Yet she realized herself frequently selected in patronizing and overly sentimental elderly films about the aged, which were unfitting for her skills, such as eldercare films like Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War and the movie Quartet, as well as poor located in France film the movie The Time of Their Lives with the performer Joan Collins.

A Brief Return in Fun

Filmmaker Woody Allen offered her a true funny character (though a brief appearance) in his You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, in which she played the questionable fortune teller hinted at by the movie's title.

Yet on film, Shirley Valentine gave her a extraordinary time to shine.

Reginald Pena
Reginald Pena

An avid explorer and tech enthusiast, Elara shares insights from her global travels and passion for innovation.