Biography for
Miriam Margolyes More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

18 May 1941, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK

Height

5' (1.52 m)

Mini Biography

A veteran of stage and screen, award-winning actress Miriam Margolyes has achieved success on both sides of the Atlantic. Winner of the BAFTA Best Supporting Actress award in 1993 for The Age of Innocence (1993) she also received Best Supporting Actress at the 1989 LA Critics Circle Awards for her role in Little Dorrit (1988) and a Sony Radio Award for Best Actress on "Radio" in 1993. She was the voice of Fly the dog in Babe (1995).

Major credits during her long and celebrated career include Yentl (1983), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), I Love You to Death (1990), End of Days (1999), Sunshine (1999), Cold Comfort Farm (1995) (TV), Cats & Dogs (2001), Magnolia (1999) and she was Prof. Sprout in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002).

Most recently Margolyes appeared in Stephen Hopkins' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004), Modigliani (2004), István Szabó's Being Julia (2004) and Ladies in Lavender. (2004) (with Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench), which is opening at the NY Tribeca Festival on April 23rd.

Most memorable TV credits include "Screen Two: Old Flames (#6.1)" (1990), "Freud" (1984), "The Life and Loves of a She-Devil" (1986), "The Black Adder" (1983), The Girls of Slender Means (1975) (TV), _Oliver Twist (1982) (TV)_, "The History Man" (1981), Vanity Fair (2004) , Supply & Demand (1997) (TV). She was Franny in the CBS sitcom "Frannie's Turn" (1992) and starred recently in the Miss Marple episode, "Murder at the Vicarage".

Stage credits include "The Vagina Monologues", Sir Peter Hall's Los Angeles production of "Romeo & Juliet", "She Stoops to Conquer" and "Orpheus Descending" (all for Sir Peter Hall), "The Killing of Sister George", "The Threepenny Opera" (Tony Richardson), Michael Lindsay-Hogg's "The White Devil" at The Old Vic, the Bristol Old Vic production of "The Canterbury Tales" and her own award-winning, one-woman show, "Dickens' Woman". In the 2002 Queen's New Years Honours List, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II awarded her the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British) Empire for her services to Drama.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Paul Coates

Trivia

She was awarded O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2002 Queen's New Years Honours List for her services to drama.

Works and has homes in the US, UK and Australia.

Is of Belarussian-Jewish descent.

In the Independent on Sunday [UK] 2006 Pink List - a list of the most influential gay men and women - Margolyes came no. 93, down from last year's no. 29.

Attended Oxford High School GDST.

Was offered the role of Professor Laird in Doctor Who: Resurrection of The Daleks. Chole Ashcroft took the role.

Became an Australian citizen on 26 January 2013. She was part of the Australia Day ceremony attended by Prime Minister Julia Gillard (who was also born in UK, in Wales).

Personal Quotes

I'm not the sort of woman men boast of having slept with.

As you certainly know, Queen Victoria did not believe in lesbianism. So that was why it was never a criminal offense, in the way homosexuality was, because she thought it was impossible.

I'm an actress and I am a scholar of English literature. And I never know which part of that is more important to me. I think it obviously must be the acting part because otherwise I would have become an academic, which I didn't do. But I've always had a love of English literature and particularly of Charles Dickens.

I think it's very likely that because (Dickens) was able to depict - in a way that I don't think had ever been done before - people's real lives, it had an enormous response among the poor. So he was the last great artist whose work was appreciated by everybody. People at the very top and the very bottom loved Dickens. Queen Victoria asked him to come and read for her and people in the street would clap him as he went. And he very much needed that contact with real people. It mattered to him. He felt, I think, that he was a man of the people. And he was.

Nowadays people say that you must let children be what they are, but when I was growing up the parents defined the child. And my parents had a definite vision of how they wanted me to be.

Early patterns are very important. They are the paradigm for relationships, since they are the earliest ones you observe. I am a clone of my mother, whereas my partner is like my father in that she's a thoughtful person, a scholar, who is extremely quiet, not demonstrative.

I used to sleep around and be silly because I thought I was an ugly, fat little person and couldn't believe that anyone would want me. So I did it to prove I could get someone.

[on her mother] She took centre-stage in our lives. She was the star. And when I hear pieces of music that my mother liked, I weep. I think it's true that the people you've loved in your life never leave you, because seeds of that love always remain flowering somewhere.

Where Are They Now

(July 2004) Sydney, Australia

(2005) Doing The Importance of Being Earnest on Broadway.

(2005) Rehersing for a tour of Importance of Being Earnest with Lynn Redgrave. The tour stops in LA and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

(December 2006) Playing Madame Morrible in the London production of Wicked.

(April 2008) Appearing in the Broadway production of "Wicked".

(January 2013) Canberra, Australia: Becoming a naturalised Australian citizen - "I've wanted to be an Australian for a very long time. My partner is Australian."