Pauline Quirke’s family have shared an emotional new update about her dementia battle, revealing the slow, devastating shifts they didn’t fully recognise until it was too late.
The beloved Birds of a Feather star, now 66, was diagnosed in 2021 — but her husband Steve Sheen and their son Charlie admitted on BBC Breakfast that the earliest signs began months before, at a time when Pauline simply “couldn’t take in the words” of a script she was reading.
Steve recalled: “She started reading it and she rang me that day saying the words just weren’t going in. That’s when it really began.”
At first, the family didn’t believe the doctors. Steve said they even told each other, “Can’t be. It’s long Covid. Maybe the flu.” But as time passed, the truth became impossible to ignore.
Today, they still don’t know the exact stage Pauline is in — something Charlie described as “the hardest part.”
He shared: “No one tells you. But Mum knows exactly who we are. Every time she sees us, she smiles, she laughs, she says she loves us.”
Steve added that each day brings tiny shifts: “It’s so gradual. For the first year or two, you think, ‘Ah, she’s alright.’ Now three, four years in, it’s different. You just take the best moment out of the day you can.”
Charlie said her condition “progresses and changes every day,” and the family is “forever learning.”
Earlier this year, Pauline made the heartbreaking decision to step away from acting after three decades on screen and countless iconic roles. Steve called it “a heavy-hearted moment,” praising her extraordinary legacy — from Birds of a Feather and Broadchurch to The Sculptress, which earned her a BAFTA nomination.
He said Pauline’s work will live on through the Pauline Quirke Academy of Performing Arts, which continues to support more than 15,000 young people across 250 branches in the UK.
Pauline married Steve in 1996, and they share their son Charlie, 30. She also has a daughter, Emily, 40, from a previous relationship.
