Best friends from the age of ten, Pauline Quirke and Linda Robson were inseparable growing up.
At a performing arts school in North London in the 1970s, both girls dreamed of leaving behind their working-class roots and becoming stars.
And they achieved that dream when they were cast in 1989 in the hit comedy series Birds Of A Feather, the perfect choice as the bickering sisters whose husbands were both in prison for armed robbery.
With Pauline playing Sharon Theodopolopodous and Linda playing Tracey Stubbs, they soon become one of the nation’s best-loved double acts.
Yet behind the scenes there were vicious rows between the pair going back as far as 1997. Matters came to a head with a huge fallout in 2019, when Pauline declined to reprise her role for a planned 2020 Christmas special, insisting instead that she wanted to focus on her own acting school, the Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
Friends of the women feared their relationship was ‘irreparable’ and the chances they would speak again were slim.
Pauline Quirke with co-stars Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph in 1989 in the hit comedy series Birds Of A Feather
But now it can be revealed that Linda, 66, and Pauline, 65, have settled their differences amid a tough three years for Pauline. In the early hours of yesterday morning, her husband and agent Steve Sheen issued a heartbreaking statement: ‘It is with a heavy heart that I announce my wife Pauline’s decision to step back from all professional and commercial duties due to her diagnosis of dementia in 2021.’
That she was suffering from the degenerative disease had not been made public at the time of her diagnosis. The statement, sent through a PR company at 1am, also paid tribute to her achievements.
‘Pauline has been an inspiration through her work in the film and TV industry. Her charity endeavour as the founder of the very successful Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts (PQA). Her talent, dedication and vision have touched countless lives and will continue to do so.’
She launched the eponymous acting school with her husband in 2007. Sheen added that Pauline now ‘just wants to spend time with her family, children and grandchild’ (she has a daughter, Emily, 40, from her first marriage, and son, Charlie, 30, with Sheen) and he listed her many achievements.
‘It was important to Steve that he paid a proper tribute. He is so, so proud of her,’ said one source. ‘Pauline didn’t just appear in Birds Of A Feather, she has done so much.’
The announcement prompted an outpouring of affection, including from TV host Lorraine Kelly. Speaking on her show yesterday morning, Lorraine sent her ‘love’ to Pauline, praised her achievements and applauded the ‘good’ she has done in raising awareness of dementia.
As well as Birds Of A Feather, her starring performance in the 1996 psychological thriller The Sculptress, as a woman convicted of the killing of her mother and sister, won her a Bafta nomination.
Pauline with husband and agent Steve Sheen, who was an executive producer in Birds Of A Feather in its earlier days
Pauline played Sharon Theodopolopodous and Linda played Tracey Stubbs in the programme
Fans of ITV whodunnit drama Broadchurch, meanwhile, will recognise her turn as murder suspect Susan Wright.
But it is inevitably for her role alongside Linda that she is best-known, and best-loved.
And today the details of the childhood friends’ reconciliation can be reveaed in full.
The two actresses – along with Lesley Joseph, who played the sisters’ next-door neighbour and had remained close with Linda – had met up for lunch in 2022 and shared a photo of themselves on social media in an attempt to dispel rumours of a feud.
The following year Linda admitted on an episode of ITV talkshow Loose Women that she had been ‘envious’ of Pauline when she had started to win acting roles in more serious dramas. And there had been claims that Pauline could be ‘demanding’ and ‘difficult’ on the show’s set.
I’m told it took some time for relations to thaw. ‘Pauline and Linda had a really tempestuous relationship at times,’ recalled a former colleague. ‘There were rows in toilets and disagreements over contracts but things are now much better.
But, the colleague adds, the depth of their ties to each other was never in doubt: ‘Very few people know Pauline as well as Linda does, they have literally known one another for 55 years.’
‘Surely at a time like this having your best childhood friend around will be very comforting. They started out together and they share a very rare bond.’
Indeed, both women have spoken warmly of one another in the past and have been each other’s rock as they navigated the showbusiness industry as young women, with Pauline first finding fame on a sketch show called Pauline’s Quirkes in 1976.
‘We went to the same primary school,’ said Linda shortly before the pair fell out. ‘We were known as the real kids, or the Cockney kids off the street.’
As Steve made his devastating announcement yesterday, Linda was on a Caribbean cruise near the island of Grenada. It is understood she was unaware that the statement was to be released.
The Loose Women star posted a snap of herself with a friend on Monday and wrote: ‘Having the time of our lives!’
Pauline’s sad news comes two years after she received her MBE from Prince William, in recognition of her services to acting. It was her last public appearance.
Her final performance as Sharon came in 2017, 28 years after she, Linda and Lesley had been catapulted to fame with Birds Of A Feather attracting 18 million viewers on BBC1.
The pair’s fallout marked an end to Pauline’s character, whose absence from the 2020 Christmas special was explained by Sharon having gone on a cruise and married a Costa Rican hunk.
In a bid to secure the future of the show, a new character called Jordan – dubbed a ‘mini-me’ of Sharon – was introduced.
Pauline’s real-life son Charlie also featured on the show as her nephew Travis Stubbs, the youngest son of her sister; joining in the tenth of the show’s 12 series. Meanwhile, her husband Steve was an executive producer in the programme’s earlier days.
‘Birds of Feather had a real family feel to it,’ says a source close to the timeless sitcom. ‘Now, at a time when Pauline needs it most, it will be there to show her huge love.’
