Shirley Valentine
"I'd fallen in love with the idea of living...because we don't do what we want to do, do we? We do what we have to do and pretend that it's what we want to do.”
“He kissed me stretch marks, y’know. He did. He said … he said they were lovely … because they were a part of me … an’ I was lovely. He said … he said, stretch marks weren’t to be hidden away—they were to be displayed … to be proud of. He said my stretch marks showed that I was alive, that I’d survived … that they were marks of life. (Pause.) Aren’t men full of shit?”
Shirley Valentine
Shirley Valentine, the film was commissioned by Paramount Pictures and produced and directed by Lewis Gilbert. The Screenplay was written by Willy Russell. The film opened the Montreal Film Festival on 24 August 1989 and was released in North America on 30 August and in the UK on 27 October 1989.
Cast
Shirley Valentine - Pauline Collins
Joe Bradshaw - Bernard Hill
Costas Dimitriades - Tom Conti
Marjorie Majors - Joanna Lumley
Jane - Alison Steadman
Gillian - Julia McKenzie
Headmistress - Sylvia Sims
Milandra Bradshaw - Tracie Bennett
Dougie - George Costigan
Jeanette - Anna Keaveney
young Shirley - Gillian Kearney
Shirley Valentine was originally a play which is a monologue. Pauline Collins played Shirley Valentine on stage - she received overwhelming critical acclaim and won the Laurence Oliver Award for Best Actress in 1988. The play opened in Liverpool and moved to London’s West End and Broadway.
Pauline Collins was subsequently cast to play the role of Shirley Valentine in the film.
Shirley Valentine, the film was released in 1989 and held the No.1 slot in the UK for five weeks. It was the highest-grossing independent British film of the year.
The film received multiple nominations and awards including an Academy Award nomination for Pauline Collins for Best Actress
Nominations
Academy Awards
Best Actress – Pauline Collins
Best Original Song - Marvin Hamlisch
British Academy Film Awards
Best Film – Lewis Gilbert
Best Adapted Screenplay – Willy Russell
Golden Globe
Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
Best Performance by an Actress
in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical – Pauline Collins
Best Original Song - Marvin Hamlicsh
Grammy Awards
Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media
Awards
British Academy Film Awards
Best Actress in a Leading Role – Pauline Collins
British Comedy Award
Top Comedy Film
Evening Standard British Film Awards
Best Actress – Pauline Collins
Best Adapted Screenplay – Willy Russell
Reviews
“Pauline Collins’s beautifully assured performance provides a funny, touching portrait…a film that keeps you smiling, chuckling and thinking.”
Barry Norman Film 89’
Russell’s writing…”few can match his ability to make us cry, laugh and ultimately care. Collins is magnificent. Everyone should see this film.”
Steve Grant Time Out
“One of the brightest, bawdiest, no-bull woman characters in years…Pauline Collins is a marvel, funny and touching”
Peter Travers Rolling Stone
“In her movie debut, Collins, best known to Americans as Sarah, the parlor maid in ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ manages the transition from stage to screen enchantingly.
The Washington Posrt
“Collins's performance as the long-suffering housewife who decamps to a Greek island is quite sublime and carefully crafted.”
Radio Times
“Pauline Collins as Shirley Valentine deserves three cheers - and an Oscar - for the funniest, gutsiest and heartfelt performance of the year”
