CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: How Pauline Collins, the star of Shirley Valentine, inspired so many lovelorn women – and was finally reunited with the baby she’d given up decades before

She was the queen of the midlife crisis, the perimenopausal wife and mother who left her husband for a wild fling with a Greek bar owner named Costas.

The 1980s romantic comedy hit Shirley Valentine turned Pauline Collins, already a much-loved actress with British television audiences, into a global star.

Collins, who died at the age of 85 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease, became the hero of every woman who decided to take back her life and turn it upside down while she still had the chance.

When Shirley’s aggrieved husband, played by Bernard Hill, announces that he will fly to Greece to drag his wife home, she retorts: ‘The woman he came to bring no longer exists. I was a mother, a wife. Now I’m Shirley Valentine again.’

Her lover, played by Tom Conti, turns out to be a serial seducer who picks a new love from every planeload. But Shirley Valentine didn’t care, and audiences loved her even more for it.

Although she had only made one film a quarter of a century ago, Pauline was a natural choice for the role – although Cher was also considered (“Well, it would be different, wouldn’t it?” quipped Pauline).

Collins played the character in Liverpool playwright Willy Russell’s one-woman stage production in both the West End and on Broadway, for which she received an Olivier award in Britain and a Tony for Best Actress in the US.

The film earned him an Oscar nomination in the same category; this subsequently became an unprecedented triple success. He was 49 years old: ‘There is still hope for wrinkles!’ he shouted.

Pauline Collins in the 1972 series Upstairs Downstairs

TV audiences in the UK, of course, adored Pauline Collins and took her to their hearts almost 20 years ago for her role as sassy parlor maid Sarah in ITV’s Upstairs, Downstairs; especially since in real life she is married to John Alderton, who plays her on-screen husband, chauffeur Thomas.

The couple starred in the spin-off Thomas And Sarah and a number of PG Wodehouse adaptations, as well as the sitcom No Honestly and the comedy-drama Forever Green.

She said her husband was easy to work with; as long as they leave the work in the studio or at the stage door. ‘Go home, put the kettle on, make dinner and forget all about it. We’re actually pretty boring. Nothing terrible happens in the woodshed.’ While John was on Broadway, he stayed home and took care of his three children. ‘It’s a good diaper changer,’ he said.

But while Shirley Valentine made her an international star, Pauline’s family life was rocked by the reappearance of her eldest child – the daughter she gave up for adoption when she was just six weeks old.

The young woman, Louise Baker, was 24 when she applied for a birth certificate and found her mother listed as ‘Actress Pauline Collins’. At first the name meant nothing to her, until a friend pointed out: ‘You know, that’s the one on TV who’s married to John Alderton.’

John had long known Pauline’s secret, but his own three children, Nicholas, Kate and Richard, did not. The reunion was an emotional upheaval, but Pauline was overjoyed.

‘Every day of my life, I sent Louise a thoughtful message letting her know that I still loved her and that I did what I did for good reasons,’ he said.

She had become pregnant at the age of 23 by fellow actor Tony Rohr, while they were touring Ireland with the Killarney Repertory Theater in 1964.

‘We fell in love,’ he said. ‘Tony was the first person I ever made love to. And despite all the innocence and arrogance of youth, I decided not to tell anyone about it.’

Collins, who passed away at the age of 85 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease, became the hero of every woman who decided to take her life back and turn it upside down while she still had the chance.

But while Shirley Valentine made her an international star, Pauline’s family life was rocked by the reappearance of her eldest child; The daughter he gave up for adoption when she was only six weeks old.

Pauline Collins appears with her husband John Alderton at the premiere of the movie “Quartet” at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2012 in Toronto.

His reticence was further compounded by the fact that his parents were both teachers in Catholic schools.

Born in Exmouth, Pauline grew up in Wallasey and trained as a teacher herself because it was the only way she could get a student grant from Liverpool council while she was training to be an actress.

Tony wanted to keep the baby, but they already knew marriage wouldn’t work for them, especially with their subsistence wage of £8 10s (or £8.50) a week. “I decided to adopt the baby,” Pauline said. ‘It’s hard to imagine now that there’s such a stigma around being raised illegitimately.’

After breastfeeding the baby for six weeks in a mother-baby home run by nuns, Pauline had to give him up to an adoption agency.

‘This was the most surprising and terrifying moment of my life,’ he recalled. ‘I cried so terribly.

‘I remember him turning and looking at me. “This kid knows,” I thought. It’s like a piece of your heart has been ripped out.’

For the next 24 years he wrote letters to Louise, which he never sent because he did not know his daughter’s whereabouts.

In fact, she was growing up just a few blocks away from where Tony lived, who was married with a family of his own at the time.

Not only did Pauline later form a close bond with Louise, but she also became friends with her adoptive mother. When they first met, Mrs. Baker opened a box to reveal the yellow knitted doll suit that baby Louise was wearing when Pauline last saw her.

Four years later he published a book telling the whole story. It came with a twist: in 1992 Louise married an Egyptian man. The little girl, born in a Catholic nursing home in Ireland, had now become a Muslim.

Writing was a passion for Pauline, especially poetry, and she read voraciously: Goethe and Jung were among her favourites. ‘I think I need to use other parts of my brain not just to recreate as an actor, but also to create, to come up with things.’

Accepting life as it was, he treated acting the same way. ‘I’m a terrible fatalist. I always get the feeling that if you have to do something, you do it. ‘I’m not the kind of person who tries to find vintage style pieces.’

Pauline Collins on the set of the TV series ‘The Black Tower’, London, England, 10 September 1985

Pauline Collins attends the World Premiere of the movie “The Time Of Their Lives” held at Curzon Mayfair on March 8, 2017 in London, United Kingdom

This was compounded by his insistence that he was not “a toy bird with legs reaching up to my ears.” I have a round face and that’s why I started doing comedy.

‘So it would be great to play the weird killer. But people don’t tend to take me seriously.’

He also refused to take himself seriously. One of her favorite stories was about playing Shirley Valentine in New York, where she retained her broad Scouse accent at first. A heckler forced him to adopt a more transatlantic sound. After he said the scripted sentence, a voice from the Bronx in the auditorium shouted, ‘He can’t understand a word I’m saying.’ ‘Neither can I.’

Shirley Valentine proved the pinnacle of her career. Although he appeared and starred in TV series such as BBC1’s The Ambassador in the late 1990s

In the quirky 19th-century soap opera Dickensian, Mrs. Gamp no longer took leading roles in major films.

Instead, she’s enjoyed cameo roles in everything from Marple to Doctor Who.

‘You get what you need,’ he said. ‘I’m not like Shirley Valentine. I prefer my life to move forward. ‘I loved my youth, but I think I love it more now.’