Miriam Margolyes

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Miriam Margolyes

Margolyes reading at an event for the charity Sense, 2006
Born 18 May 1941 (1941-05-18) (age 67)
Oxford, England
Occupation Actress

Miriam Margolyes OBE (born May 18, 1941) is a BAFTA Award-winning British film, television and character actress. She is one of Britain's most sought after supporting players, and has appeared in a number of successful feature films.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Margolyes was born in Oxford, England, the daughter of Ruth (née Walters), a real estate investor, and Joseph Margolyes, a physician.[1] She grew up in a Jewish family,[2] a descendant of immigrants from Belarus. She attended the local Oxford High School and later Newnham College, Cambridge. There, she began acting in her 20s, in productions by the Gay Sweatshop company and also appeared in productions of the Cambridge Footlights.

[edit] Acting career

Originally, it was her work as a voice artist that brought her into the public consciousness. She voiced the female rabbit character in the animated commercials for Cadbury's Caramel, and performed most of the supporting female characters in the dubbed Japanese action TV series, Monkey.

Margolyes' first major role in a film was as a character called Elephant Ethel, and she has since become a familiar face in the world of film and television. Margolyes received critical acclaim for her portrayal of Flora Finching in the 1988 movie Little Dorrit. On American television, she headlined the short-lived 1992 CBS sitcom Frannie's Turn. In 1993 she won a Best Supporting Actress, BAFTA for her role as Mrs Mingott, the only comic relief in Martin Scorsese's The Age Of Innocence, a performance that jump-started her career. Margolyes then began to be noticed by a much younger audience when she starred as Aunt Sponge in James And The Giant Peach; she also did the voice of the Glow Worm in the same movie. Then she starred as another well-known character from a book: Professor Sprout in Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets.

Margolyes was recently seen alongside Geoffrey Rush and Charlize Theron in The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, and (as Dolly de Vries) with Annette Bening, Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon in Being Julia. Margolyes also featured as Dorcas the housekeeper in Ladies in Lavender with Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, and cropped up in a guest role in ITV mystery drama Marple, a new series transmitted in the UK in 2004, which featured Geraldine McEwan in the title role.

She is also known for iconic comedic roles, such as playing the Spanish Infanta alongside Rowan Atkinson in Blackadder, as Lady Whiteadder in "Blackadder II" and also for portraying Queen Victoria in Blackadder's Christmas Carol. She recently starred in the original cast of the London production of Wicked as Madame Morrible opposite Idina Menzel. She is currently reprising her role as Madame Morrible but this time on Broadway, taking over the role from Carole Shelley on January 22, 2008. She will play her final performance on June 15th 2008 and she will be replaced by Jayne Houdyshell.

She recently toured Australia in her one woman show Dickens' Women beginning in September 2007. Margolyes also featured in the British comedy Jam and Jerusalem, which stars Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French and Joanna Lumley.

[edit] Personal life

Margolyes keeps her personal life private, but she has not seen any reason to keep it a secret that she is a lesbian, or as she playfully says "deliberately never been married or had children"[citation needed]. She took time out of her career to look after her ill mother, and spent quarter of a million pounds on full time care for her father[citation needed]. She is a campaigner for a respite care charity, Crossroads.[3][4] She also supports Sense, a charity for deafblind people.[5]

She appeared on British Television show University Challenge, whilst at Cambridge University. As part of a BBC documentary University Challenge: The Story so Far she claimed that during her appearance, she swore live on air after getting a question wrong[citation needed], becoming the first person to say the word "fuck" on British Television (but that no recording of the incident survives to confirm this).

She intends to become an Australian citizen.[3]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Television

[edit] Theatre

[edit] Documentary

[edit] Awards and Nominations

[edit] References

  1. ^ Miriam Margolyes Biography (1941-)
  2. ^ http://www.gmb.org.uk/Shared_ASP_Files/UploadedFiles/DDD81B34-BD5C-4BA4-B6B3-F1D06E022C21_MiriamMargolyes.pdf
  3. ^ a b Late Night Live - 10September2007 - Miriam Margolyes and Dickens' Women
  4. ^ http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/current/audioonly/lnl_20070910.mp3
  5. ^ http://www.sense.org.uk/media_centre/celebrity_supporters/miriam_margolyes.htm

[edit] External links

Awards
Preceded by
Miranda Richardson
for Damage		 BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
1993
for The Age of Innocence		 Succeeded by
Kristin Scott Thomas
for Four Weddings and a Funeral