Pauline Collins, Lead Actress of the Film Shirley Valentine, Passes Away at Eighty-Five Years Old

Pauline Collins, widely recognized for her role in the movie Shirley Valentine, has died at the eighty-five years old.

She died peacefully in her London care home, surrounded by her family after battling Parkinson's for several years, according to her family.

Collins will be best remembered for her portrayal of unhappy homemaker Shirley in the director's acclaimed motion picture, based on the celebrated stage play by Willy Russell.

Her critically acclaimed performance won her the Golden Globe Award for outstanding actress as well as a BAFTA award.

'Charming and Witty'

Collins' family released a statement saying: "Pauline was so many things to so many people, playing a variety of roles in her career. An intelligent, lively, and humorous figure on theater and film. Her distinguished work saw her play politicians, mothers and queens."

"She will always be remembered as the iconic, strong-willed, vivacious and wise Shirley Valentine - a part she completely owned. We knew all those aspects of her personality because her magic was contained in each one of them."

The statement continued she was their "devoted mother, our beloved grandmother and great-grandmother", and her husband John Alderton's "eternal partner"

"Kind, humorous, giving, considerate, intelligent, she was always there for us," they said, thanking her carers, who looked after her with "dignity, compassion, and most of all love"

"She could not have had a calmer departure. We ask that you recall her at the peak of her career; so joyful and full of energy; and allow us privacy to contemplate a life without her"

Stage Success

She initially performed the lead part of Shirley Valentine at the Vaudeville Theater in London in 1988. She won that year's Olivier award for outstanding actress.

A year later she returned to the character on the New York stage, where she picked up numerous prizes including a prestigious Tony award.

The movie adaptation was launched shortly after.

Her other films included 1991's City of Joy with Patrick Swayze, shot in Kolkata, which brought her wider recognition worldwide.

Born in Exmouth in 1940, Collins was raised near Liverpool and began her professional life as a teacher.

Her love of the stage inspired her to pursue acting on a side basis, and in 1957 she appeared briefly as a medical attendant in the TV series Emergency Ward 10.

She featured in the film Secrets of a Windmill Girl in 1966, playing a fictional dancer in a London adult entertainment venue, the Windmill Theatre.

After a number of stage roles, she employed her regional dialect to secure a part on the show The Liver Birds.

Her acting career that she met her husband John Alderton. They married in 1969 and had a family of three, their sons and daughter.

Alderton and Collins starred alongside each other in a variety of screen projects, such as Upstairs, Downstairs, in which she played a maid in the acclaimed ITV program.