The actor’s family announced her death on Thursday after her battle with Parkinson’s disease for several years.

Pauline Collins, Oscar-nominated Shirley Valentine star, dies at 85

The actor's family announced her death on Thursday after her battle with Parkinson's disease for several years.

By Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum is a staff writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2019 and is a published author. Her work has previously appeared in *TV Guide Magazine*, E! News/E! Online, *The Hollywood Reporter*, Mashable, Bustle, IGN, DCComics.com, Inverse, *The Daily Northwestern*, and more.

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November 6, 2025 5:44 p.m. ET

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Pauline Collins in 'Shirley Valentine'. Credit:

Paramount/courtesy Everett

Oscar-nominated and Tony-winning actress Pauline Collins, best known for starring in *Shirley Valentine*, has died. She was 85.

Collins' death in her care home in London was announced by her family on Thursday in a statement obtained by *, *where they revealed she battled Parkinson's disease for several years.

"Pauline was so many things to so many people, playing a variety of roles in her life," her family's statement reads. "A bright, sparky, witty presence on stage and screen. Her illustrious career saw her play politicians, mothers and queens. She will always be remembered as the iconic, strong-willed, vivacious and wise Shirley Valentine — a role that she made all her own. We were familiar with all those parts of her because her magic was contained in each one of them."

Pauline Collins on 'Upstairs, Downstairs'.

TV Times via Getty

Her family added that donations can be made in her name to Parkinson’s UK.

Her husband John Alderton remembered Collins as a "remarkable star" in a separate statement shared with EW.

"I had the great good fortune to have worked with her more than any other actor in our many TV series, films and West End stage shows together, and watched her genius at close quarters," Alderton said. "What I saw was not only her brilliant range of diverse characters but her magic of bringing out the best in all of the people she worked with. She wanted everyone to be special and she did this by never saying 'Look at me.' It's no wonder that she was voted The Nations Sweetheart in the 1970's."

Alderton added that Collins "will always be remembered for *Shirley Valentine*, not only for her Oscar nomination or the film itself, but for clean sweeping all seven awards when she portrayed her on Broadway in the stage play, in which she played every character herself. But her greatest performance was as my wife and mother to our beautiful children."

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Collins was born on Sept. 3, 1940, in Devon, England, and attended London’s Central School of Speech and Drama. While she originally followed her parents' footsteps to work as a teacher, she ultimately pivoted to acting and made her stage debut in 1962's *A Gazelle in Park Lane*. Her first film role was 1966's *Secrets of a Windmill Girl, *and she landed a role on the BBC’s *Doctor Who* in 1967. However, she turned down a series regular role as the Doctor’s companion in pursuit of other opportunities.

Collins went on to star in the first season of *The Liver Birds* before joining ITV's hit series *Upstairs, Downstairs* as the maid Sarah who had a romance with chauffeur Thomas Watkins (played by her husband Alderton), which earned her a BAFTA nomination. Collins and Alderton later reprised their roles for the spinoff *Thomas and Sarah *in* *1979.

Collins and Alderton frequently appeared together in various stage and screen projects, including *No, Honestly, Wodehouse Playhouse, Little Miss*, *Forever Green,* *Mrs. Caldicot’s Cabbage War,* and in a production of *Going Straight* with their daughter, Kate Alderton.

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But Collins is best known for her Oscar-nominated, and Olivier- and Tony-winning work in *Shirley Valentine*, a story about a middle-aged British housewife who upends her life to go on holiday with her friend and rediscover herself. Collins first starred in Willy Russell's 1988 one-woman play in London's West End, which won her the Olivier Award for Best Actress.

She then starred in the movie version opposite Tom Conti, for which she was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress (she lost to Jessica Tandy for *Driving Miss Daisy*), before returning to the stage in the Broadway version in 1989, winning the Tony Award for Best Actress.

Collins' lengthy resume includes several other appearances on TV, in films, and stage productions including *Paradise Road,* *Dickensian, My Mother’s Courage, Time of their Lives,* *The Ambassador*, *Bleak House,* and *Mount Pleasant*.

In 2001, she was made an OBE for her services to acting.

Collins is survived by her husband, whom she married in 1969, her daughters Kate and Louise, and sons Nicholas and Richard.

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