SHE DID IT ALL

‘Shirley Valentine’ Actress Dies at 85 After Health Battle

The BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Award-winning actress had been battling Parkinson’s disease.

British actress Pauline Collins, who won a slew of awards for playing housewife Shirley Valentine, has died at the age of 85. In 1988, Collins starred in the one-woman play Shirley Valentine, about a middle-aged woman who develops a new lease on life when she takes a trip to Greece, winning the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress. A year later, she took the play to Broadway where she also won a Tony Award and reprised the role in the film adaptation that same year which earned her a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination, however she lost the Oscar to Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy. The Doctor Who actress lived in Hampstead, London, with husband John Alderton, whom she married in 1969. The couple had three children, Nicholas, Kate, and Richard. Collins had an older daughter, Louise, with actor Tony Rohr. The couple gave Louise up for adoption in 1965 but later reconnected with her when she was 21. Collins wrote an autobiography, Letter to Louise, sharing her relationship with her long-estranged daughter. She also starred in other movies including City of Joy, Paradise Road and Albert Nobbs. Collins’ family shared that the actress died after suffering from Parkinson’s disease for several years. “She will always be remembered as the iconic, strong-willed, vivacious, and wise Shirley Valentine—a role that she made all her own,” her family said in their statement to the PA news agency.