BBC Breakfast host announces death of acting legend as co-star pays emotional tribute

Shirley Valentine star Tom Conti told how co-star Pauline Collins changed his life as he paid tribute following her death.

The actor appeared on BBC Breakfast on Friday, November 7 after hosts Ben Thompson and Sarah Campbell announced that the actress, who had Parkinson's disease, had died at the age of 85. Family said she died "peacefully" at a care home in London.

Tom shared the screen with the star in the romantic movie in 1989, and during an appearance on BBC Breakfast on Friday (November 7) he said she was "brilliant".

"Pauline did change my life. She did, in fact, change my life because I did Shirley V with her," he said via video link.

"And that changed both of our lives, really, due to her phenomenal work."

Talking about making the film, Tom said: "As I watched her speak to the camera, I thought, this movie's going to be a hit. Because she was so incandescent, really, in her ability to transfer thought, which is really what acting is about more than anything else, is the transference of thought.

"And she was just brilliant at that, in everything she did. She and Maggie Smith, I think, were our greatest actresses."

He went on: "The secret of acting is not acting and she was brilliant at that. She just talked. And you believed her absolutely everything that she said. You believed completely. Because you weren't watching an actress, you were watching a person. And that's a phenomenal skill."

Tom also shared that he and Pauline had been neighbours long before they co-starred in the film.

"I didn't know she was in Valentine's until I met her on the set," he explained.

"You know, we had been friends.We lived in the same road for 30 years. We were neighbours.

"So, you know, we were in and out of each other's houses all the time. I mean, it was a very long friendship. I knew her long before we did Shirley Valentine together."

The actress's family said in a statement: "Pauline was so many things to so many people, playing a variety of roles in her life. A bright, sparky, witty presence on stage and screen. Her illustrious career saw her play politicians, mothers and queens.

"She will always be remembered as the iconic, strong-willed, vivacious and wise Shirley Valentine - a role that she made all her own. We were familiar with all those parts of her because her magic was contained in each one of them."

Her husband, actor John Alderton, also paid tribute, calling her "a remarkable star".

BBC Breakfast airs on BBC One from 6am.