Miriam Margolyes

Early life and education

Miriam Margolyes was born on 18 May 1941 in Oxford, England, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family of Russian-Jewish and Belarusian-Jewish origins. She is the only child of Joseph Margolyes (1899–1995), a Scottish-born physician and general practitioner from the Strathbungo area of Glasgow, and property developer Ruth (née Sandeman; 1905–1974), daughter of a second-hand furniture dealer and auctioneer at Kirkdale, Liverpool, who later relocated to London. The maternal family surname changed from Sandeman to Walters before Margolyes' birth. Her maternal great-grandfather, Symeon Sandmann, was born in the Polish town of Margonin, then part of the Kingdom of Prussia, which Margolyes visited in 2013. Her paternal grandfather, Philip Margolyes, was born in the small Belarusian shtetl of Amdur, then in Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire.

Margolyes attended Oxford High School and Newnham College, Cambridge. There, in her 20s, she began acting and appeared in productions by the Cambridge Footlights. She represented Newnham College in the first series of University Challenge, where she may have been one of the first people to say "fuck" on British television; she claims to have used the word in frustration on the show in 1963. The word was "bleeped out" for transmission.

Career

With her versatile voice, Margolyes first gained recognition as a voice artist. In the 1970s, she recorded a soft-porn audio titled Sexy Sonia: Leaves from my Schoolgirl Notebook. In 1972, she played alongside Tony Robinson in the educational TV show Sam on Boffs' Island. She performed most of the supporting female characters in the dubbed Japanese action TV series Monkey. She also worked with the theatre company Gay Sweatshop and provided voiceovers in the Japanese TV series The Water Margin.

In 1974, she appeared with Kenneth Williams and Ted Ray in the BBC Radio 2 comedy series The Betty Witherspoon Show.

Margolyes's first major film role was as Elephant Ethel in Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers (1977). In the 1980s, she made appearances in Blackadder opposite Rowan Atkinson: these roles include the Spanish Infanta in The Black Adder, Lady Whiteadder in Blackadder II, and Queen Victoria in Blackadder's Christmas Carol. In 1986, she played a major supporting role in the BBC drama The Life and Loves of a She-Devil. She won the 1989 LA Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Flora Finching in the film Little Dorrit (1988). On American television, she headlined the short-lived 1992 CBS sitcom Frannie's Turn. In 1994, she won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mrs Mingott in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (1993).

Margolyes played the dental nurse to Steve Martin's dentist in the 1986 film Little Shop of Horrors. In her 2023 memoir Oh Miriam: Stories from an Extraordinary Life, Margolyes said Martin was "undeniably brilliant, but horrid to me" during the film. Martin responded that "My memory is that we had a good communication as professional actors. But when it is implied that I harmed her or was in some way careless about doing the stunts, I have to object".

In 1989, Margolyes co-wrote and performed a one-woman show, Dickens' Women, in which she played 23 characters from Dickens' novels. In 2005, she hosted a ten-part BBC Four documentary, Dickens in America, which retraced Dickens's 1842 journey across the United States of America.

Margolyes played Aunt Sponge and voiced the Glow-Worm in James and the Giant Peach (1996). She played the Nurse in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996). She voiced the rabbit character in the animated commercials for Cadbury's Caramel bars and provided the voice of Fly the dog in the Australian-American family film Babe (1995).

Personal life

Margolyes spent many years living for long periods in Australia, and became an Australian citizen on Australia Day 2013 while retaining her British citizenship.

She identifies as lesbian, and referred to herself as a "dyke" live on national television and in front of Australian prime minister Julia Gillard in 2013. Since 1968, she has been in a relationship with Heather Sutherland, an Australian retired professor of Indonesian studies. On 26 June 2013, Sutherland and Margolyes entered into a civil partnership. As of 2012, they were dividing their time between homes in London and Kent in England, Robertson, New South Wales in Australia, and Montisi in Italy. In November 2023, Margolyes revealed on The Graham Norton Show that she and Sutherland had never lived together but she wanted to do so as they were now both old and did not have much time left. She had been living in London and Sutherland had been living in Amsterdam for a while.

Health

Margolyes has spoken openly about several health challenges in later life. She has been diagnosed with spinal stenosis, a condition that causes narrowing of the spinal canal and affects mobility. As a result, she uses mobility aids, including walking sticks, a walker, and a mobility scooter, and is registered as disabled. She also suffers from osteoarthritis, which contributes to chronic pain in her legs, hands, and back, and has undergone knee replacement surgery on her left knee.

In May 2023, she underwent a transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), a minimally invasive heart procedure in which her aortic valve was replaced with one made from the tissue of a cow's heart.

In July 2025, Margolyes responded to renewed media speculation about her health, following earlier claims that she had said in an interview she was "probably going to die within the next five or six years, if not before". In a video message, she dismissed claims that she was "at death's door" as "bollocks", affirming she was "very much alive" and preparing to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

In August 2025, during an interview with the Daily Mail's Weekend magazine, Margolyes expressed support for assisted dying, stating she would consider it if a stroke left her unable to speak, doubly incontinent or cognitively impaired.

Charities

Margolyes is a patron of My Death My Decision, a UK organisation that seeks to legalise medical assisted suicide if that is a person's persistent wish.

She is a supporter of Sense (the National Deafblind and Rubella Association), and was the host at the first Sense Creative Writing Awards, held at the Charles Dickens Museum in London in December 2006, where she read works written by deafblind people.

She is also a campaigner for the respite care charity Crossroads.

Political views

Margolyes's political activism started at university. "I came from a very middle-class Jewish background, always Tory-voting", she later said. However, in the 1970s, she joined the Workers Revolutionary Party with other actors and Equity members, including Vanessa Redgrave, Frances de la Tour, and Tom Kempinski.

Margolyes is a member of the Labour Party and is registered to vote in Vauxhall. In August 2015, she was a signatory to a letter criticising The Jewish Chronicle's reporting of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's alleged associations with antisemites. In November 2019, she endorsed the Labour Party in the UK general election because of their policies on the National Health Service. Later in the month, along with other public figures, she signed a letter supporting Corbyn and describing him as a "beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent far-right nationalism, xenophobia, and racism in much of the democratic world".

Margolyes was very critical of the British Government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. She considered it "a public scandal" and "a disgrace". With the Prime Minister hospitalised suffering from COVID-19, Margolyes said "I had difficulty not wanting Boris Johnson to die."

In her 2020 ABC series Almost Australian, Margoyles interviewed the Sistergirls of the Tiwi Islands, a transgender group of indigenous Australians. Margoyles can be seen telling the group "to be a woman you're gonna have to get rid of all that stuff [referring to facial hair] but I get whiskers on my chin and I have to pluck them out with tweezers because that's what women do," before being told by one of the indigenous members "you know, in our culture we respect that person regardless of the look. We don't look on the outside, it's the inside that you have to change." Margolyes responded "I apologise, now I understand."

In a 2022 interview with Radio Times, Margolyes questioned the usefulness of attacks on J. K. Rowling despite disagreeing with Rowling's stance on trans people, commenting that "There is a spectrum and people can be anywhere along that. There isn't one answer to all these trans questions". In November 2023, Margolyes said during another appearance on The Graham Norton Show that her position had changed after a discussion with Zoe Terakes, a trans Australian actor, and that she no longer believed that grammar was paramount over making someone happy by using their preferred pronouns.

Books

Dickens' Women (2011) Co-authored with Sonia Fraser

This Much is True (2021)

Oh Miriam!: Stories from an Extraordinary Life (2023)

The Little Book of Miriam (2025)

Miriam's Full English: A Grand Tour of All Our Best Bits (2026)

In popular culture

Author and comedian David Walliams says he used Margolyes as a model for the title character in his children's book Awful Auntie after an argument with her during a stage production, though he stressed that he has nothing against her and is a fan of her work.

Filmography

Non-fiction television

Notes

The Thief and the Cobbler (1993) – the voice of the Maiden from Mombasa (original version only; the character was not heard at all in the re-edited versions and another actor was never available in all the re-edited versions)

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) – Peg Sellers – note this film was shown in cinemas in the UK, Ireland, and Australia – it aired on cable television on the HBO network in the US.

Awards and nominations

Margolyes was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2002 New Year Honours for Services to Drama.