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During the 70s, this gifted performer emerged as a clever, humorous, and cherubically sexy performer. She became a recognisable celebrity on either side of the sea thanks to the hugely popular English program the Upstairs Downstairs series, which was the equivalent of Downton Abbey back then.

Her role was Sarah, a spirited yet sensitive housemaid with a questionable history. Her character had a connection with the handsome chauffeur Thomas, portrayed by Collins’s off-screen partner, John Alderton. It was a TV marriage that the public loved, continuing into follow-up programs like Thomas and Sarah and No, Honestly.

The Peak of Brilliance: Shirley Valentine

But her moment of her career came on the big screen as the character Shirley Valentine. This empowering, mischievous but endearing adventure set the stage for later hits like the Calendar Girls film and the Mamma Mia series. It was a uplifting, funny, sunshine-y story with a excellent part for a seasoned performer, broaching the theme of women's desires that was not governed by traditional male perspectives about demure youth.

Collins’s Shirley Valentine anticipated the emerging discussion about midlife changes and women who won’t resign themselves to fading into the background.

From Stage to Film

It originated from Collins taking on the lead role of a an era in Willy Russell’s 1986 stage play: the play Shirley Valentine, the desiring and unanticipatedly erotic relatable female protagonist of an fantasy middle-aged story.

She was hailed as the star of the West End and Broadway and was then triumphantly cast in the smash-hit film version. This very much followed the alike stage-to-screen journey of actress Julie Walters in Russell’s 1980 play, Educating Rita.

The Narrative of Shirley Valentine

The film's protagonist is a down-to-earth scouse housewife who is weary with daily routine in her forties in a tedious, unimaginative country with monotonous, dull people. So when she gets the possibility at a free holiday in the Greek islands, she seizes it with both hands and – to the surprise of the dull UK tourist she’s gone with – remains once it’s over to experience the authentic life beyond the tourist compound, which means a delightfully passionate fling with the roguish resident, Costas, portrayed with an striking mustache and speech by actor Tom Conti.

Sassy, sharing Shirley is always addressing the audience to inform us what she’s thinking. It received loud laughter in theaters all over the United Kingdom when Costas tells her that he loves her stretch marks and she comments to us: “Don't men talk a lot of rubbish?”

Later Career

Following the film, the actress continued to have a vibrant career on the stage and on television, including roles on the Doctor Who series, but she was not as supported by the film industry where there appeared not to be a author in the class of the playwright who could give her a true main character.

She starred in director Roland Joffé's passable Calcutta-set film, the movie City of Joy, in 1992 and starred as a British missionary and Japanese prisoner of war in director Bruce Beresford's Paradise Road in the late 90s. In Rodrigo García’s film about gender, the 2011 movie Albert Nobbs, Collins went back, in a way, to the Upstairs, Downstairs setting in which she played a below-stairs domestic worker.

But she found herself frequently selected in condescending and syrupy elderly entertainments about the aged, which were not worthy of her, such as nursing home stories like the film Mrs Caldicot's Cabbage War and the movie Quartet, as well as ropey located in France film the movie The Time of Their Lives with the performer Joan Collins.

A Brief Return in Humor

Director Woody Allen provided her a genuine humorous part (albeit a brief appearance) in his You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, in which she played the questionable fortune teller hinted at by the title.

But in the movies, her performance as Shirley gave her a remarkable time to shine.