Pauline Collins, who was Oscar nominated for playing the title role in Shirley Valentine, has died, aged 85.
She died peacefully, surrounded by her family, in her care home in north London. She’d had Parkinson’s disease for several years.
She was married to actor, John Alderton, who she appeared alongside in dramas including Upstairs, Downstairs, spin-off Thomas & Sarah and sitcom, No, Honestly.
“Pauline Collins was a remarkable star. I had the great good fortune to have worked with her more than any other actor in our many TV series, films and West End stage shows together, and watched her genius at close quarters,” he said in a statement.
“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. She wanted everyone to be special and she did this by never saying ‘Look at me’. It’s no wonder that she was voted the nation’s sweetheart in the 1970s.
“She will always be remembered for Shirley Valentine, not only for her Oscar nomination or the film itself, but for clean-sweeping all seven awards when she portrayed her on Broadway in the stage play, in which she played every character herself.
“But her greatest performance was as my wife and mother to our beautiful children.”
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Born in Devon, she was brought up in Wallasey and started out as a teacher before making her stage debut in the early 60s. That was followed by a role in Emergency-Ward 10 and then her first film in 1966 – Secrets of a Windmill Girl.
That same year she also appeared in The Saint and then Doctor Who (1967) as Samantha Briggs, but turned down a longer term role as the Doctor’s assistant, telling The Guardian “I thought it was like a prison sentence.”
She did however return to the long-running BBC series in 2012:
“We had the huge privilege of working with Pauline on Doctor Who – Tooth and Claw, the one with Queen Victoria vs the werewolf, happy days!” said Russell T Davies.
“It was such an honour to have her on set, I was in awe. Though she soon cut that down to size – I remember one night, meeting her in a wet Cardiff car park as she hauled Victoria’s yards of bombazine through the puddles, ‘This f*cking dress is so heavy!’
“I told her she looked like Giles’s Grandma, and she swore royally. And then roared with laughter! Oh she was salty and wonderful, and the finest of actors. As a kid, I thought Thomas and Sarah was TV magic (an actual spin-off! Good idea!). I loved No Honestly.
“A true star. And she’d laugh at that.”
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Collins became a regular on the television with the likes of The Liver Birds, where she played Dawn in the first 5 episodes of Carla Lane’s Liverpool sitcom. Also, the aforementioned Upstairs, Downstairs, as the maid Sarah, appearing throughout the first 2 series and later spin-offs.
Then came Shirley Valentine. In 1988 she starred in what was originally a one-woman play, by Willy Russell, in London’s West End, before hearing to Broadway.
Made into a film in 1989, she played a middle-aged Liverpool housewife, alongside Bernard Hill, Tom Conti and Dame Joanna Lumley, who said:
“We only shared one afternoon, filming a scene for Shirley Valentine, but in that short time I could see at once why she became a blazing star.
“The blend of truthfulness and soulful naivety with impeccable comic timing and mischief made her unforgettable.”
She would win a Golden Globe Award and Bafta for her performance, as well as being nominated for an Oscar.
