Pauline Collins dies: ‘Shirley Valentine’ Oscar nominee was 85

British actress Pauline Collins, who was nominated for an Oscar for her turn as a housewife in “Shirley Valentine,” has died. She was 85 years old.

The actress died peacefully at her care home in north London this week after living with Parkinson’s disease for several years, Collins’ family said in a statement on Thursday. In the statement, her family said, Collins “was many things to many people, played many different roles in her life.”

“A brilliant, bright, charming presence on stage and screen,” the family described the versatile actor, whose career began in the 1960s.

Collins was in her forties when she starred in “Shirley Valentine,” a smart but frustrated housewife who accepts a friend’s offer to travel to Greece to bring some much-needed spice to her life. “Sex for breakfast, sex for dinner, sex for tea and sex for dinner,” Shirley proudly proclaims in the 1989 film, directed by Lewis Gilbert.

For Collins, “Shirley Valentine” was about more than just femininity, self-love and self-discovery. It was also an opportunity to challenge ageist conventions in entertainment, including shooting a barbarian scene for the film.

“My only regret was that I wasn’t young and thin,” Collins, 49, told The Times in 1989. “But if I were Jamie Lee Curtis, I wouldn’t be right for the part.”

“Shirley Valentine,” starring Tom Conti as her on-screen Greek lover and Alison Steadman as her partner, earned Collins her only Academy Award nomination, in the leading actress category. The film also earned an Oscar nomination for Patti Austin’s original song “The Girl That Used To Be Me,” written by Marvin Hamlisch and husband-and-wife singers Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

Two years before the film’s premiere, Collins originated the role of Shirley Valentine in Willy Russell’s One Woman play of the same name in London. This led to her Broadway debut in 1989 and a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play the same year. She also received accolades for the play at the Laurence Oliver Awards and a BAFTA for her work in the film.

Beyond “Shirley Valentine,” Collins was also known for appearing in dozens of television series including “Upstairs, Downstairs,” “Evergreen,” “The Ambassador,” “Mount Pleasant” and “The Dickensian.” She also appeared in films including “Joy City”, “Paradise Road” and “You’ll Meet a Tall Dark Stranger” with Patrick Swayze, Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins among her co-stars.

During her decades-long screen career, Collins also continued to work in theater, including productions of “The Importance of Being Charming,” “A Woman on the Mind” and “Cinderella.”

Collins, born in 1940, was raised near Liverpool by a schoolteacher mother and a headmaster father. She told The Times in 1989 that her father was “one of the first feminists.”

“He had three daughters and he always gave us everything a boy would have – education and stuff,” she said. “[My parents] They had a completely joint household situation, they both worked, cooked, washed. He even washed the diapers [diapers] by hand.”

Her marriage to “Upstairs, Downstairs” co-star John Alderton — they married in 1969 — wasn’t much different. “He just spent five months holding down the fort at home while I was on Broadway,” she recalled.

Elderton, 84, said Thursday that Collins’ “best performance was as my wife and mother to our beautiful children.”

While Collins was known for her scenic and romantic on-screen vacations to the Greek coast, she preferred a different kind of destination off-screen: St. Petersburg, Fla.

She told the Times: “It’s amazing, people think when you’re alone you’re going to have a great sex trip. Here I am going to Disney World by myself.” “What does that say about me?”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.