Before she started acting, she worked as a teacher till 1962. She later made her stage debut at Windsor in A Gazelle in Park Lane in 1962 and in 1965, she made her West End debut in Passion Flower Hotel. In 1966, During the play’s run, she released her first film, Secrets of a Windmill Girl.
In 1967, She played Samantha Briggs, Doctor Who serial The Faceless Ones and she was offered the opportunity to continue in the show as a new Doctor’s Companion but she rejected the request.
Some of her early TV credits include the UK’s first medical soap, Emergency – Ward 10 (1960), and the pilot episode and first series of The Liver Birds, both in 1969.
Pauline first became famous for her role as the maid Sarah in the 1970s ITV drama series Upstairs, Downstairs. The character appeared routinely in every part of the first two series, the second of which also featured her actor partner, John Alderton, with whom she later starred in a spin-off, Thomas & Sarah (1979), and the sitcom No, Honestly, as well as in a short story series In 1983 She co-narrated the animated British children’s TV show Little Miss with her husband John Alderton.
Collins released a 1973 single for Decca in reference to her role in Upstairs, Downstairs: What Are We Going to Do with Uncle Arthur? (Performed many times throughout the series by her character) b/w With Each Passing Day (a vocal version of the theme for the show).
In April 1972, Pauline was a subject of the television program ‘This Is Your Life’ when she was surprised by Eamonn Andrews.
Shirley Valentine and recent years Collins starred in the one-woman play Shirley Valentine in London 1988, reprising the role on Broadway in 1989 and in the 1989 film version. The film was lucky to win a number of awards and nominations. Both the play and the feature film made effective use of the technique known as “breaking the fourth wall,” just as the character Shirley Valentine addresses the audience directly throughout the plot.
After Shirley Valentine, Pauline again starred alongside John Alderton in the popular ITV drama series Forever Green created and written by Terence Brady and Charlotte Bingham in which the fictitious couple escapes the city with their children to start a new life in the country. From 1989 to 1992 it ran over 18 episodes. Pauline was voted the sexiest woman in Britain in 1990.
Pauline’s film credits include the 1992’s City of Joy, 1995’s My Mother’s Courage, 1997’s Paradise Road, and 2002’s Mrs. Caldicot’s Cabbage War, which also featured Alderton. In 1999 and 2000, Pauline starred as Harriet Smith in the BBC television drama Ambassador, where she played the lead role of the British ambassador to Ireland. Other television credits are The Saint, The Wednesday Play, Armchair Theatre, Play for Today, Tales of the Unexpected, Country Matters, and The Black Tower.
In the year 2002, she guest-starred in Man and Boy, the dramatization of Tony Parsons’ best-seller. She has appeared in the 2005 BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens ‘ Bleak House as Miss Flite. In 2006, she became only the third actress to have been in both the original and new Doctor Who series, starring as Queen Victora in the episode “Tooth and Claw”
Later in the year, 2006, she appeared in Extinct, a program where eight celebrities campaigned on behalf of an animal to save it from extinction. Pauline campaigned to save the Bengal tiger and won the public vote.
Pauline appeared as the fairy godmother in the pantomime Cinderella at the Old Vic in London in December 2007.
She was cast as part of Sky 1’s new comedy-drama Mount Pleasant in 2011. She played the role of Sue, Lisa’s mum, in the first and the second series running into 2012. She didn’t return to the third series in 2013, and her character was removed in the fourth series in 2014.
She later appeared as Mrs. Gamp in the BBC TV series Dickensian in late 2015.
Pauline was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2001 Birthday Honours for services to drama.
