The press dismissed her as a ‘national trinket.’ Now this much-loved, sometimes mocked Jewish actress is telling her own story
In her newest memoir, MIriam Margolyes takes the high road — mostly. Photo by John Murray Press
If you try to find the American equivalent of Miriam Margolyes, good luck — there probably isn’t one.
Fans of the Harry Potter films and the popular TV series Call the Midwife may well recognize the short, zaftig very British character actress from her memorable performances in them — or in some of the 150 or so additional films and shows she has appeared in over a six-decade career. But in the UK and Australia, Margolyes is more than a highly versatile character actor with an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for her services to drama.
She is an outspoken, ribald, 82-year old feminist, a Cambridge University-educated Jewish lesbian. Her many appearances on “chat shows” and two recent memoirs — the new Oh Miriam: Stories from an Extraordinary Life, released recently in the U.S., is a sequel to the the previous This Much Is True — make the fictitious comic Mrs. Maisel, and even the actual comic Sarah Silverman, seem almost, well, prim. And reticent.
In her home country, Margolyes is mostly embraced (and sometimes snubbed) as a very public source of delight and controversy. She has wound up on the cover of the British edition of Vogue, and been disparaged by the English press as a “national trinket” — a label she first hated, then co-opted. Then again, one could place Margolyes in the tradition of gutsy, taboo-flouting, “big mouthed” Jewish women Rabbi Susan Schnur celebrated in the pages of the feminist journal Lilith.
Oh Miriam! boasts plenty of the bawdy anecdotes and musings on sex and other bodily functions Margolyes is known for. But it is also a rumination on her fairly conservative upbringing, as well as a thoughtful reflection on the art of acting, an advice manual for living well and a soapbox for her political views — with a bit of spicy gossip and score-settling on the side.
Like most celebrity memoirs, Oh Miriam! is not great literature. Bite-sized chapters like “Adventures in Heavy Petting” and “Are You a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?” appear scrapbook-style, in no particular order. Reading the book is rather like chatting with a famously eccentric relation — who, when she’s not making you wince, can have you nodding or chuckling in agreement.
The book recounts her adventures as an ever-welcome, reliably uncensored guest on the saucy English celebrity chat show hosted by Irish comedian Graham Norton (and aired on some American streaming networks). The puckish Miriam, looking what used to be considered grandmotherly with her mop of white curls and gentle smile, has chatted amiably in her cultivated Oxbridge accent about mooning stuffy people to cheer them up, “breaking wind” at inopportune times and chowing down on whole raw onions. And in print and on TV, she graphically recounts her surprising (actually, rather alarming) adolescent sexual adventures. (In YouTube clips, you can watch her shock Stanley Tucci, the late Matthew Perry and other guests on Graham Norton’s couch with her racier remarks.)
While there’s an ick factor in reading some of her more scatological stories, Margolyes can be very entertaining — and sometimes very astute. And there’s something lovable about an elder woman who bares her soul, quirks and all, with such candor. It’s partly shtick, certainly, but a sincere sort of shtick.
Or to put it another way, in the Oscar Wilde quote that precedes the book, “To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up.” And Margolyes manages it better than most.
A descendant of Belarussian and Polish immigrants, Margolyes was raised in a fairly straitlaced, observant Jewish family. She is vocal about her strong Jewish identity, and bluntly addresses the problem of antisemitism in England. “Nobody likes Jews. You can’t say people like Jews,” she proclaimed in an interview with the Independent. “We’re not popular. We’re too smart to be liked.”
Though generally supportive of Israel, Margolyes despises Benjamin Netanyahu and is a longtime advocate of Palestinian rights. In Oh Miriam, written well before the current war in Gaza began, she accuses Israel’s prime minister of “fanning the flames of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and removing the chance of peace between them.”
While many American celebrities avoid political commentary for fear of giving offense or inviting social media harassment, Margolyes expresses hers with indignant frankness. She excoriates former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and trashes Brexit and the UK’s conservative political party. “I’m not on a soapbox here,” she writes — then adds, “AVOID THE TORIES AT ALL COSTS.
However, like many Brits, Margolyes sees no contradiction between her leftist political views and her lifelong fondness for the monarchy – a sentiment we Americans can find curious. She delights in her social acquaintance with King Charles, and you can imagining her spicing up his private palace parties.
Margolyes acknowledges she’s not everybody’s cup of Earl Gray. And the glints of vulnerability she reveals beneath her bravado are touching and a bit sad. “I am loathed by many,” she writes. “I have been called vile and hideously ugly and foul-mouthed and talentless.”
She recounts feeling the sting from Monty Python member John Cleese and and other male alums of Cambridge’s elite comedy troupe Footlights, who shunned her offstage “in revenge for me getting laughs onstage” when she briefly performed with them in her student days. “They wanted to take me down a peg, and it still hurts 60 years on,” she writes
The memoir includes other digs at colleagues whom she contends treated her badly. For instance, Margolyes claims she was repeatedly “punched, slapped and knocked down by an unlovely and unapologetic Steve Martin” while they were filming the 1986 movie musical Little Shop of Horrors. When Oh Miriam! came out in Britain last year, the usually press-shy Martin issued a statement vigorously rebutting the charge.
More often in Oh Miriam!, Margolyes speaks fondly of co-workers, including Scottish actor Alan Cumming (they shared a van in a documentary series of odd-couple road trips across Scotland), Vanessa Redgrave, Steve Buscemi, Joan Collins and numerous others. She also offers solid pointers on the craft of acting — though most readers may not require them. But the sweetest patches of Oh Miriam! affectionately describe her partnership with her wife, historian Heather Sutherland. The two have been together for over 50 years and, between international work demands, share homes in London, Australia and Italy.
It’s an unconventional living arrangement, but aren’t most things about Miriam Margolyes extraordinary?
But throughout this book about a life fully lived, she urges readers to “be kind” and underscores that what she values most is kindness — with a pinch of sass. “When I swear or come out with something shocking, it’s usually because I’m trying to bring others some joy,” Margolyes explains. “I don’t want to upset anyone. Except politicians – they can fuck right off.”
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