The Times in 1989<\/a>. \u201cBut if I were Jamie Lee Curtis, I wouldn\u2019t have been right for the part.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cShirley Valentine,\u201d 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\u2019s \u201cThe Girl Who Used to Be Me,\u201d written by Marvin Hamlisch and husband-wife lyricist duo Alan and Marilyn Bergman.<\/p>\n
Two years before the film\u2019s premiere, Collins originated the role of Shirley Valentine in London for Willy Russell\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
Beyond \u201cShirley Valentine,\u201d Collins was also known for appearing in dozens of TV series including \u201cUpstairs, Downstairs,\u201d \u201cForever Green,\u201d \u201cThe Ambassador,\u201d \u201cMount Pleasant\u201d and \u201cDickensian.\u201d She also appeared in films including \u201cCity of Joy,\u201d \u201cParadise Road\u201d and \u201cYou Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,\u201d counting Patrick Swayze, Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins among her co-stars. <\/p>\n
Throughout her decades-long screen career, Collins also continued her work in theater, including productions of \u201cThe Importance of Being Earnest,\u201d \u201cWoman in Mind\u201d and \u201cCinderella.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201cwas one of the early feminists.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had three daughters and always offered us everything that a boy would have \u2014 education and stuff,\u201d she said. \u201c[My parents] had a completely shared domestic situation, they both worked, cooked, did the washing. He even washed nappies [diapers] by hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her marriage to \u201cUpstairs, Downstairs\u201d co-star John Alderton \u2014 they married in 1969 \u2014 was not too different. \u201cHe just spent five months holding down the fort at home while I was on Broadway,\u201d she recalled. <\/p>\n
Alderton, 84, said Thursday that Collins\u2019 \u201cgreatest performance was as my wife and mother to our beautiful children.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s amazing, people think when you\u2019re on your own you\u2019re going off to have wonderful sexual adventures. Here I am, on my own, going off to Disney World,\u201d she told The Times. \u201cWhat does that say about me?\u201d<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British actor Pauline Collins, who earned an Oscar nomination for her turn as the stuck-in-a-rut housewife of \u201cShirley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42096,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28291,28284,28289,1431,1924,48,52,51,47,50,49,28288,28286,6049,28290,8702,28285,1791,28287,1968,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-42095","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-broadway-debut","9":"tag-collins","10":"tag-downstairs","11":"tag-family","12":"tag-film","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-headlines","15":"tag-la-news","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","18":"tag-los-angeles-news","19":"tag-north-london","20":"tag-one-woman-play","21":"tag-role","22":"tag-schoolteacher-mother","23":"tag-sex","24":"tag-shirley-valentine","25":"tag-times","26":"tag-upstairs","27":"tag-work","28":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}