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In the 1970s, this gifted performer appeared as a clever, humorous, and youthfully attractive performer. She grew into a familiar star on either side of the ocean thanks to the blockbuster English program the Upstairs Downstairs series, which was the period drama of its era.

Her role was the character Sarah, a bold but fragile parlour maid with a shady background. Her character had a connection with the attractive chauffeur Thomas, acted by Collins’s actual spouse, John Alderton. This turned into a TV marriage that audiences adored, which carried on into follow-up programs like Thomas & Sarah and No Honestly.

Her Moment of Greatness: The Shirley Valentine Film

But her moment of greatness arrived on the big screen as the character Shirley Valentine. This liberating, cheeky yet charming journey paved the way for future favorites like Calendar Girls and the Mamma Mia!. It was a cheerful, humorous, bright comedy with a excellent part for a mature female lead, broaching the topic of female sexuality that was not limited by usual male ideas about demure youth.

This iconic role prefigured the emerging discussion about perimenopause and women who won’t resign themselves to being overlooked.

From Stage to Screen

It originated from Collins playing the lead role of a an era in Willy Russell’s 1986 theater production: the play Shirley Valentine, the desiring and surprisingly passionate everywoman heroine of an fantasy comedy about adulthood.

She was hailed as the celebrity of the West End and Broadway and was then successfully cast in the smash-hit film version. This largely mirrored the similar stage-to-screen journey of actress Julie Walters in Russell’s 1980 theater piece, Educating Rita.

The Narrative of Shirley Valentine

Her character Shirley is a down-to-earth scouse housewife who is weary with daily routine in her middle age in a dull, uninspired country with boring, unimaginative people. So when she receives the chance at a complimentary vacation in the Greek islands, she seizes it with eagerness and – to the astonishment of the boring UK tourist she’s gone with – stays on once it’s over to encounter the authentic life outside the tourist compound, which means a wonderfully romantic fling with the charming local, Costas, portrayed with an bold moustache and dialect by actor Tom Conti.

Sassy, open Shirley is always speaking directly to viewers to share with us what she’s thinking. It got big laughs in theaters all over the Britain when Costas tells her that he appreciates her skin lines and she remarks to viewers: “Men are full of nonsense, aren't they?”

Later Career

Post-Shirley, the actress continued to have a active work on the stage and on television, including appearances on the Doctor Who series, but she was not as fortunate by the film industry where there appeared not to be a screenwriter in the caliber of Russell who could give her a genuine lead part.

She was in filmmaker Roland Joffé's decent Calcutta-set film, City of Joy, in 1992 and starred as a UK evangelist and captive in wartime Japan in filmmaker Bruce Beresford's the film Paradise Road in 1997. In Rodrigo García’s trans drama, the film from 2011 the Albert Nobbs film, Collins returned, in a manner, to the Upstairs, Downstairs setting in which she played a below-stairs housekeeper.

But she found herself often chosen in condescending and cloying silver-years stories about old people, which were beneath her talents, such as eldercare films like Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War and Quartet, as well as subpar set in France film the movie The Time of Their Lives with the performer Joan Collins.

A Brief Return in Fun

Woody Allen did give her a true funny character (although a small one) in his You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, in which she played the shady psychic referenced by the title.

However, in cinema, the Shirley Valentine role gave her a remarkable period of glory.