I missed this last year…
Pauline Collins died last November. Maybe it was posted in last year’s thread, and I just didn’t see it. But just in case…
In short (not really), Pauline Collins, actress and Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), appointed for her services to drama in 2001, died last Nov. 5, (2025), from complications of Parkinson’s disease. Her family was around her.
She was best known as Sarah, the under house-parlourmaid on Upstairs, Downstairs, and the titular character in Shirley Valentine, which she created as a one-woman show on stage, and later played in a movie based on the play. She was 85.
I was a fan. Since I was about four, and watched the first Upstairs, Downstairs series with my parents while staying up past my bedtime, because neither of them wanted to put me to bed and miss it, and as long as I was being quiet, they didn’t care. I had a girl-crush on Sarah, and followed the about 75% of the plot, which was enough to enjoy it.
About 15 years ago, I got hold of DVDs of two shows she made in the UK that had been released only on the PAL format. I cracked them by using a new computer DVD player set on region 2 & VLC region-free software then uploading them to a separate hard drive. The shows were No, Honestly, and Forever Green, both made with her real-life husband John Alderton, to whom she was married for 56 years. They did two other series together, which were released in the US, Thomas & Sarah (an Upstairs, Downstairs spinoff), and Wodehouse Playhouse (dramatizations of several Wodehouse short stories, introduced by Wodehouse himself).
Forever missed.