Shirley Valentine gave Pauline Collins a role to match her talent. She seized it with style and glee

<p>The film for which the actor, who has<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/06/shirley-valentine-actor-pauline-collins-dies-aged-85"> died aged 85</a>, is best-remembered is also that in which she was afforded most airtime. If only more film-makers had managed to channel her warm, sharp charm</p><p>Pauline Collins was the smart, funny, cherubically sexy female actor in the 1970s who became a recognisable star on both sides of the Atlantic in the smash hit British TV show Upstairs, Downstairs, the Downton Abbey of its day.</p><p>She played Sarah, the pert-yet-vulnerable parlour maid with a dodgy past, who has a relationship with the handsome chauffeur Thomas, played by Collins’s real-life husband, John Alderton. It was a TV marriage that the public loved and which carried on into spinoff shows Thomas and Sarah and No, Honestly.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/nov/06/shirley-valentine-gave-pauline-collins-a-role-to-match-her-talent-she-seized-it-with-style-and-glee">Continue reading...</a>