Pauline Collins, who has died in London at the age of 85, was among the craftiest actors of her generation. She was also an undeniable comfort.
The public felt they were watching a friend on screen, but, in her most celebrated performances, there was always a sense of sly intelligence winking within. It was there in her breakthrough turn as Sarah Moffat, incorrigible underhouse parlour maid, in the stratospherically successful ITV series Upstairs Downstairs.
You caught that same buried wit during her lonely monologues in the film version of Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine from 1989. When that performance secured her an unexpected Academy Award nomination, fans of her British television performances – often appearing alongside husband John Alderton – could be forgiven for fearing the United States would capture her an
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