Pauline Collins, Oscar-nominated British star of ‘Shirley Valentine,’ dies at 85
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- British actor Pauline Collins has died peacefully at her care home in north London, her family said in a statement Thursday. She was 85.
- Her family described the versatile actor as “a bright, sparky, witty presence on stage and screen.”
British actor Pauline Collins, who earned an Oscar nomination for her turn as the stuck-in-a-rut housewife of “Shirley Valentine,” has died. She was 85.
Collins’ family said in a statement Thursday that the actor died peacefully this week at her care home in north London after living with Parkinson’s disease for several years. In the statement, her family said Collins “was so many things to so many people, playing a variety of roles in her life.”
“A bright, sparky, witty presence on stage and screen,” the family described the versatile actor, whose career began in the 1960s.
Collins was well into her 40s when she starred in “Shirley Valentine,” a witty but disgruntled homemaker who accepts a girlfriend’s offer to travel to Greece to bring much-needed spice back to her life. “Sex for breakfast, sex for dinner, sex for tea and sex for supper,” Shirley proudly declares in the 1989 film, directed by Lewis Gilbert.
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For Collins, “Shirley Valentine” was more than just an ode to womanhood, self-love and self-discovery. It was also a chance to challenge the conventions of aging in entertainment, including by shooting a nude scene for the film.
“My only sorrow was that I wasn’t younger and thinner,” a 49-year-old Collins told The Times in 1989. “But if I were Jamie Lee Curtis, I wouldn’t have been right for the part.”
“Shirley Valentine,” which also starred Tom Conti as her on-screen Greek lover and Alison Steadman as her friend, led Collins to receive her sole Academy Award nomination, a nod in the leading actress category. The film also received an original song Oscar nomination for Patti Austin’s “The Girl Who Used to Be Me,” written by Marvin Hamlisch and husband-wife lyricist duo Alan and Marilyn Bergman.
Two years before the film’s premiere, Collins originated the role of Shirley Valentine in London for Willy Russell’s one-woman play of the same name. That led to her Broadway debut in 1989 and a Tony Award for best actress in a play the same year. She also won accolades for the play at the Laurence Olivier Awards and a BAFTA for her work in the film adaptation.
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Beyond “Shirley Valentine,” Collins was also known for appearing in dozens of TV series including “Upstairs, Downstairs,” “Forever Green,” “The Ambassador,” “Mount Pleasant” and “Dickensian.” She also appeared in films including “City of Joy,” “Paradise Road” and “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” counting Patrick Swayze, Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins among her co-stars.
Throughout her decades-long screen career, Collins also continued her work in theater, including productions of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” “Woman in Mind” and “Cinderella.”
Collins, born in 1940, was raised near Liverpool by a schoolteacher mother and a headmaster father. She told The Times in 1989 that her dad “was one of the early feminists.”
“He had three daughters and always offered us everything that a boy would have — education and stuff,” she said. “[My parents] had a completely shared domestic situation, they both worked, cooked, did the washing. He even washed nappies [diapers] by hand.”
The last thing most women facing the far side of 40 and the near side of zaftig would want is to strip bare for a big-screen leap into the ocean.
Her marriage to “Upstairs, Downstairs” co-star John Alderton — they married in 1969 — was not too different. “He just spent five months holding down the fort at home while I was on Broadway,” she recalled.
Alderton, 84, said Thursday that Collins’ “greatest performance was as my wife and mother to our beautiful children.”
While Collins was known for her scenic and romantic on-screen vacation to the Greek coast, she preferred a different kind of destination off-screen: St. Petersburg, Fla.
“It’s amazing, people think when you’re on your own you’re going off to have wonderful sexual adventures. Here I am, on my own, going off to Disney World,” she told The Times. “What does that say about me?”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
