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During the 70s, this gifted performer emerged as a intelligent, witty, and appealingly charming actress. She developed into a recognisable figure on both sides of the Atlantic thanks to the blockbuster English program Upstairs, Downstairs, which was the equivalent of Downton Abbey back then.

She played the character Sarah, a spirited yet sensitive servant with a questionable history. Sarah had a relationship with the attractive chauffeur Thomas, played by Collins’s actual spouse, the actor John Alderton. This turned into a on-screen partnership that audiences adored, which carried on into follow-up programs like the Thomas and Sarah series and the show No, Honestly.

Her Moment of Brilliance: Shirley Valentine

Yet the highlight of her success occurred on the silver screen as the character Shirley Valentine. This liberating, naughty-but-nice adventure paved the way for later hits like Calendar Girls and the Mamma Mia!. It was a cheerful, comical, sunshine-y comedy with a wonderful part for a mature female lead, addressing the topic of feminine sensuality that was not governed by traditional male perspectives about youthful innocence.

This iconic role anticipated the emerging discussion about midlife changes and ladies who decline to fading into the background.

Originating on Stage to Cinema

It started from Collins taking on the lead role of a her career in Willy Russell’s stage show from 1986: the play Shirley Valentine, the yearning and surprisingly passionate everywoman heroine of an fantasy comedy about adulthood.

She turned into the toast of the West End and the Broadway stage and was then triumphantly chosen in the highly successful movie adaptation. This very much mirrored the similar transition from theater to film of the performer Julie Walters in Russell’s 1980 play, the play Educating Rita.

The Story of The Film's Heroine

Collins’s Shirley is a practical wife from Liverpool who is tired with existence in her 40s in a boring, lacking creativity place with monotonous, dull people. So when she receives the opportunity at a free holiday in the Mediterranean, she seizes it with both hands and – to the surprise of the dull English traveler she’s traveled with – stays on once it’s ended to encounter the genuine culture outside the resort area, which means a wonderfully romantic adventure with the charming resident, Costas, acted with an striking facial hair and dialect by actor Tom Conti.

Bold, confiding Shirley is always speaking directly to viewers to inform us what she’s feeling. It got huge chuckles in cinemas all over the Britain when Costas tells her that he appreciates her body marks and she remarks to viewers: “Aren’t men full of shit?”

Later Career

Post-Shirley, the actress continued to have a vibrant work on the theater and on television, including parts 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 Willy Russell who could give her a real starring role.

She appeared in filmmaker Roland Joffé's passable located in Kolkata drama, City of Joy, in 1992 and featured as a British missionary and Japanese prisoner of war in Bruce Beresford’s the film Paradise Road in 1997. In filmmaker Rodrigo García's film about gender, 2011’s Albert Nobbs, Collins went back, in a way, to the Upstairs, Downstairs environment in which she played a downstairs housekeeper.

But she found herself often chosen in condescending and cloying silver-years films about seniors, which were not worthy of her, such as eldercare films like Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War and the movie Quartet, as well as ropey set in France film the movie The Time of Their Lives with Joan Collins.

A Small Comeback in Humor

Director Woody Allen provided 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 movie's title.

However, in cinema, Shirley Valentine gave her a extraordinary moment in the sun.