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In the 70s, this gifted performer appeared as a intelligent, witty, and youthfully attractive actress. She grew into a recognisable celebrity on each side of the sea thanks to the hugely popular UK television series Upstairs Downstairs, which was the period drama of its era.

Her role was the character Sarah, a bold but fragile parlour maid with a dodgy past. Her character had a connection with the handsome driver Thomas, acted by Collins’s real-life husband, the actor John Alderton. This turned into a TV marriage that viewers cherished, extending into spinoff shows like Thomas and Sarah and No Honestly.

Her Moment of Excellence: Shirley Valentine

But her moment of her success arrived on the cinema as Shirley Valentine. This freeing, cheeky yet charming adventure set the stage for later hits like the Calendar Girls film and the Mamma Mia series. It was a uplifting, comical, optimistic comedy with a wonderful role for a mature female lead, tackling the theme of female sexuality that did not conform by traditional male perspectives about youthful innocence.

Collins’s Shirley Valentine foreshadowed the emerging discussion about perimenopause and women who won’t resign themselves to invisibility.

Starting in Theater to Cinema

It originated from Collins playing the main character of a her career in Willy Russell’s 1986 stage play: the play Shirley Valentine, the yearning and unexpectedly sensual relatable female protagonist of an escapist middle-aged story.

She was hailed as the celebrity of London’s West End and New York's Broadway and was then triumphantly selected in the smash-hit film version. This very much mirrored the comparable path from play to movie of Julie Walters in Russell’s 1980 play, the play Educating Rita.

The Story of The Film's Heroine

The film's protagonist is a down-to-earth scouse housewife who is tired with daily routine in her forties in a tedious, unimaginative country with boring, dull individuals. So when she receives the opportunity at a no-cost trip in Greece, she seizes it with eagerness and – to the astonishment of the boring English traveler she’s accompanied by – remains once it’s over to experience the real thing beyond the vacation spot, which means a wonderfully romantic escapade with the charming local, Costas, portrayed with an bold facial hair and dialect by actor Tom Conti.

Bold, confiding Shirley is always addressing the audience to share with us what she’s pondering. It got big laughs in cinemas all over the Britain when her love interest tells her that he adores her stretch marks and she remarks to viewers: “Aren’t men full of shit?”

Post-Valentine Work

After Valentine, the actress continued to have a vibrant career on the theater and on TV, including roles on Doctor Who, but she was less well served by the film industry where there seemed not to be a screenwriter in the caliber of Willy Russell who could give her a true main character.

She starred in director Roland Joffé's passable set in Calcutta drama, City of Joy, in the year 1992 and starred as a British missionary and Japanese prisoner of war in filmmaker Bruce Beresford's Paradise Road in 1997. In director Rodrigo García's trans drama, 2011’s Albert Nobbs, Collins went back, in a sense, to the class-divided environment in which she played a servant-level housekeeper.

However, she discovered herself often chosen in condescending and overly sentimental elderly stories about seniors, which were not worthy of her, such as care-home dramas like Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War and Quartet, as well as poor French-set film The Time of Their Lives with actress Joan Collins.

A Small Comeback in Fun

Director Woody Allen offered her a true funny character (although a brief appearance) in his You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, in which she played the questionable clairvoyant referenced by the title.

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