Shirley Valentine (film) Shirley Valentine (film) Shirley Valentine is an award-winning 1989 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Lewis Gilbert. The screenplay by Willy Russell is based on his 1986 one-character play of the same title, which follows middle aged Shirley Valentine in an unexpected discovery of herself, and rekindling of her childhood dreams and youthful love of life. Pauline Collins reprises the titular lead role as middle-aged housewife Shirley, which she had previously played in the stage production in London's West End and on Broadway, and Tom Conti plays Costas Dimitriades, the owner of a Greek tavern with whom she has a
Anne Shirley in the 1919 film adaption of "Anne of Green Gables" later had her career ruined when the film director William Desmond Taylor was murdered in 1922, and her name came up as a suspect, through she was never charged. When Minter attempted a comeback as an advice columnist later in the 1920s, she used the pen-name Anne Shirley in an attempt to restore her wholesome image, which had been ruined by the Taylor murder scandal. The actress Dawn O'Day who played Shirley in the 1934 film adaption of "Anne of Green Gables" liked the character so much she legally changed