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In the 1970s, Pauline Collins rose as a clever, funny, and cherubically sexy performer. She became a familiar star on either side of the sea thanks to the blockbuster British TV show Upstairs, Downstairs, which was the Downton Abbey of its day.

She played the character Sarah, a bold but fragile parlour maid with a shady background. Her character had a connection with the attractive driver Thomas the chauffeur, portrayed by Collins’s actual spouse, John Alderton. It was a TV marriage that viewers cherished, extending into spinoff shows like the Thomas and Sarah series and No, Honestly.

The Peak of Excellence: Shirley Valentine

However, the pinnacle of her career occurred on the big screen as Shirley Valentine. This freeing, naughty-but-nice story set the stage for subsequent successes like Calendar Girls and the Mamma Mia series. It was a buoyant, funny, bright comedy with a wonderful part for a mature female lead, broaching the topic of female sexuality that was not limited by conventional views about youthful innocence.

This iconic role anticipated the emerging discussion about midlife changes and women who won’t resign themselves to fading into the background.

Starting in Theater to Screen

It originated from Collins taking on the starring part of a an era in playwright Willy Russell's stage show from 1986: the play Shirley Valentine, the yearning and unanticipatedly erotic relatable female protagonist of an fantasy middle-aged story.

She was hailed as the celebrity of London theater and the Broadway stage and was then victoriously selected in the highly successful movie adaptation. This largely followed the alike path from play to movie of actress Julie Walters in Russell’s stage work from 1980, Educating Rita.

The Story of Shirley's Journey

The film's protagonist is a practical Liverpool homemaker who is weary with existence in her 40s in a tedious, unimaginative place with monotonous, unimaginative people. So when she receives the possibility at a complimentary vacation in Greece, she grabs it with enthusiasm and – to the surprise of the unexciting English traveler she’s traveled with – continues once it’s over to encounter the genuine culture away from the resort area, which means a delightfully passionate escapade with the roguish resident, Costas, portrayed with an bold facial hair and accent by actor Tom Conti.

Cheeky, confiding the heroine is always speaking directly to viewers to tell us what she’s pondering. It got loud laughter in theaters all over the United Kingdom when her love interest tells her that he appreciates her body marks and she comments to us: “Aren’t men full of shit?”

Post-Valentine Work

Following the film, the actress continued to have a active career on the stage and on TV, including appearances on Dr Who, but she was not as fortunate by the film industry where there appeared not to be a author in the class of Russell who could give her a genuine lead part.

She was in filmmaker Roland Joffé's passable set in Calcutta story, City of Joy, in 1992 and starred as a UK evangelist and Japanese prisoner of war in Bruce Beresford’s Paradise Road in the late 90s. In filmmaker Rodrigo García's trans drama, the film from 2011 Albert Nobbs, Collins returned, in a way, to the servant-and-master environment in which she played a downstairs domestic worker.

However, she discovered herself often chosen in dismissive and overly sentimental older-age entertainments about old people, which were not worthy of her, such as eldercare films like the film Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War and the movie Quartet, as well as poor set in France film the movie The Time of Their Lives with actress Joan Collins.

A Brief Return in Fun

Director Woody Allen provided her a real comedy role (although a minor role) in his You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, in which she played the questionable psychic alluded to by the film's name.

Yet on film, her performance as Shirley gave her a extraordinary moment in the sun.