Pauline CollinsOBE (born 3 September 1940)[1] is a British actress who first came to prominence portraying Sarah Moffat in Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–1973) and its spin-off Thomas & Sarah (1979). In 1992, she published her autobiography Letter to Louise.[2]
Collins was born in Exmouth, Devon, the daughter of Mary Honora (née Callanan), a schoolteacher, and William Henry Collins, a school headmaster.[1] She is of Irish extraction, and was brought up as a Catholic in Wallasey, Cheshire.[3] Her great-uncle was Irish poet Jeremiah Joseph Callanan.[4]
Collins was educated at Sacred Heart High School and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.[5] Before turning to acting, she worked as a teacher until 1962. She made her stage debut at Windsor in A Gazelle in Park Lane in 1962 and her West End debut in Passion Flower Hotel in 1965. During the play's run, she made her first film, titled Secrets of a Windmill Girl, released in 1966. More stage roles followed.
Collins played Samantha Briggs in the 1967 Doctor Who serial The Faceless Ones and was offered the chance to continue in the series as a new companion for the Doctor, but declined the role.
Other early TV credits include the UK's first medical soap Emergency Ward 10 (1960), and the pilot episode and first series of The Liver Birds, both in 1969.
Collins first became well-known for her role as the maid Sarah in the 1970s drama series Upstairs, Downstairs. The character appeared regularly throughout the first two series, the second of which starred her actor husband John Alderton, with whom she later starred in the spin-off Thomas & Sarah (1979); the sitcom No, Honestly, written by Terence Brady and Charlotte Bingham; and a series of short-story adaptations titled Wodehouse Playhouse (1975–1978). She co-narrated the animated British children's TV series Little Miss with Alderton in 1983.
In connection with her role on Upstairs, Downstairs, Collins recorded the 1973 single "What Are We Going to Do with Uncle Arthur?" (performed by her character several times during the series) backed with "With Every Passing Day" (a vocal version of the show's theme).[6]
In 1988, Collins starred in the one-woman play Shirley Valentine in London, reprising the role on Broadway in 1989 and in the 1989 film version. The film won a number of awards and nominations; Collins was nominated for the Oscar as Best Actress and won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical. Both the play and the feature film used the technique known as breaking the fourth wall as the character Shirley Valentine directly addresses the audience throughout the story.
After Shirley Valentine, Collins starred with her husband in the popular ITV drama series Forever Green, created and written by Terence Brady and Charlotte Bingham in which the fictitious couple escape the city with their children to start a new life in the country. It ran from 1989 to 1992 over 18 episodes. Collins was voted sexiest woman in Britain in 1990.
In 2006, she became the third actor to have been in both the original and new series of Doctor Who, appearing in the episode "Tooth and Claw" as Queen Victoria.
Later in 2006, she appeared in Extinct, a programme where eight celebrities campaigned on behalf of an animal to save it from extinction. Collins campaigned to save the Bengal tiger and won the public vote.
In December 2007, she appeared as the fairy godmother in the pantomime Cinderella at the Old Vic in London.
In 2011, she was cast as part of the comedy-drama Mount Pleasant. She played the role of Sue, Lisa's mother, in the first two series running into 2012. She did not return to the third series in 2013, and her character was killed off in the fourth series in 2014.
Collins married actor John Alderton in 1969 and lives in Hampstead, London with her husband and their three children Nicholas, Kate, and Richard.[1] She also has an older daughter, Louise, with actor Tony Rohr. Collins gave Louise up for adoption in 1964 when she was a penniless single mother.[10] They were reunited when Louise was 22 years old.[10] Collins's book, Letter To Louise, documents these events.[11]
^Pauline, Collins. (28 March 1999). "Pauline Collins – My secret for a good marriage? Give", Interviewed by Sharon Feinstein, Sunday Mirror. Retrieved 13 May 2010. "But I was very worried about taking it on because I'm not Jewish. I'm a Liverpool Irish Catholic and this role was such a responsibility because it involved a huge and emotive part of the history of the Jewish race."
