A year or so after I first interviewed Miriam Margolyes, I was asked to write her obituary. Perhaps it’s not so odd a thing — newspapers like to have obituaries of famous people ready to publish in advance of their deaths and, at 84 and grumbling every now and then about various health gripes, she perhaps didn’t have decades to go. But still, it was a slightly bewildering experience, imagining a world without Miriam in it, her stories about blowjobs and love and Dickens. So when, last month, I was invited to meet her again, I leapt at the chance.
She settles me next to her in the garden with a glass of cucumber water ("Don’t you think that’s a bit sophisticated?") and rather than scoffing at the greatly exaggerated news of her death, explains why it angered her.
"Because I think it’s about the anti-Zionist business. They wanted to make out that I was dying."
There had surfaced, she says, old Facebook photos of her in hospital and newspapers started loudly speculating, with, "Articles saying, ‘I don’t think Miriam will be coming to the Edinburgh Festival. I don’t think she’s going to be lasting that long.’ Now, that’s deliberate. To stop me selling tickets."
She believes it’s linked to the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) recently calling for her to be "shunned by the showbiz world" after she accused Israel of behaving like Nazi Germany. "Stripped of my bra, I would worry. Stripped of my OBE? That’s not going to happen."
She’s joking, of course, but of course, she’s not. "I understand the [CAA’s] pain, but where is their shame? That, to me, is the crucial thing, that we, of all people, should be meting out this horror. Where do we go from here? How does this end?"
By "we" she means Jewish people — in her early days at the BBC in the 1960s, she wore a badge to work that said, "Gay Yids"; she’s always worn her Judaism proudly.
Has the war in Gaza affected her Jewishness?
"Yes, I think it has. I’ve stopped believing in God. And it’s made me question what the point is of any religion if it can encourage and entitle such behaviour."
She feels a muddled sort of pride, still — Jews are remarkable people, she says.
"We’ve made a difference to the world. And that’s all just melted away down the toilet. Just who are we now? Murderers of children. And they think that’s going to help the poor suffering hostages, for whom I also mourn?" She clenches her fists, distressed now. "Israel has lost the respect of the world. I’m shocked and saddened that they [the CAA] think I’m the criminal. And I don’t like being bullied and threatened."
She is actively resisting cancellation and/or death.
"I’m a decent person. So, good luck! I’m a human being before I’m a Jew, or a woman or a lesbian. And I see human beings being wiped out deliberately, by people who have some connection with me. Well, I do not support it. That’s it."
This is not an unfamiliar conversation for her, or for me, or for many Jewish people right now. There tends to come a moment in these conversations, where one or the other will take a breath, and offer kindly to change the subject.
The contents page of Margolyes’ delightful new book includes lists like: "apartheid; apostrophes ... ....hole ... ", and, "c....sucking; coffin; comedy; ... crisps; c...," and, "fandom; farting; fat; fellatio," and, "partner; patriarchy; penis; period costumes; periods," all of which read pleasingly, as an abbreviated, alphabetised autobiography. It contains details of her first orgasm (aged 8, walking past the house of a teacher she loved passionately), being propositioned by Warren Beatty ("Do you f...?", "Yes, but not you,"), politics ("Of course I’m woke. And proudly so,") and swearing — when she’s castigated for her "potty mouth", she says she wants to respond with a question about Gaza or Grenfell, her point being, however many times she says "c... face", "no-one dies as a consequence".
The book also contains a series of dinner-party questions, which we decide to work through leisurely. "Wait, I’m just going to fart." She raises her right cheek and a jangling drum roll echoes through the garden. "There we go. Special treat." Do her farts smell? "Well, it depends what I’ve been eating." What have you been eating? "Chopped liver."
OK, dinner-party question one: When did you first
have sex? She purses her lips. She thinks it was 25. With a woman. "I mean, there was a lot of c... sucking, but that doesn’t count."
She talks often of c...s, (there is an extended anecdote in the book that begins with one of her famous chat-show stories, about w...ing off a soldier she found in a tree, but continues with two additional encounters that same evening with men who’d sidled up after seeing her with the soldier) but she’s far more discreet about sex with women. Is that because the stories are less funny? "Well, yes. And also because women matter. Men don’t."
Question two: how long do you want to live?
"As long as I wasn’t doubly incontinent I’d like to live forever."
It doesn’t seem inconceivable, honestly. Her father died at 95, "But oh, I think he would be very upset and disturbed at what I’m most famous for." Which is what? "c... sucking, I suppose." Is that how it feels? "Well, sometimes, because people always want to talk to me about c...s and farting, and you know, I have got more to offer than that."
Do you really want to live forever?
"Yes. Because I want to know what happens."
Margolyes has plans, after 57 years together, to finally move in with her partner Heather. Why now?
"The world around us has lost its charm. And we just want each other in a beautiful place which we know."
They’ll live in Tuscany, with a couple there who’ll care for them.
"We can toddle along and laugh and just quietly subside into old age. But together."
Margolyes will leave everything to Heather, but if she dies first there’s a list of people and bequests, including one to a Palestinian university.
Question three: What enrages you about modern life?
"The greed and the insistence on externals. What people look like, how much money they have, Botox, all that nonsense. When you kiss someone, you don’t want ‘filler’. You want the mouth. You want the subtle yielding of skin that belongs to someone you love or desire." Connection. "Yes. Not with a layer in between, yucky poos!"
She had a meeting this morning and wondered maybe if she should have worn make-up.
"But then I just thought, you know, f... it. This is what I look like. This is who I am. Who am I trying to kid? I’ve never been beautiful, yet I’ve managed, I’ve managed with the force of my personality and the energy of my intelligence. And that will have to do."
Question four: What’s been your greatest sin?
"I think probably hitting my mother when she was paralysed, out of exhaustion and frustration, but I’ve not done anything that I would call a big sin. I’ve never killed anybody. I’ve never stolen anything."
You’ve never stolen anything?
"Well, that isn’t completely true. I did steal two eggs from a shop in Plaistow in 1964."
Would she like to apologise on the record?
"Not really."
Between us, her phone is flashing an alert from celebrity app Cameo with a certain urgency — during the pandemic, she started selling videos of herself to fans.
"Just a minute. Where’s my glasses? I’ll just record one quickly."
She swiftly reads the fan’s request and starts recording. "Hello, Simmy! It’s Miriam Margolyes, this is from Maxie, who’s actually paid me to wish you a very happy birthday on the 14th of October. Seems a bit early. Anyway ... "
She wraps up, with a majestic kind of warmth, and chuckles. How much has she earned on Cameo so far? Glasses back on, quick scroll, and I lean in to see a figure close to half a million pounds.
"What about that? What about that!" We toast our sophisticated waters. "Fart coming up!"
Odourless.
Since our last interview, Margolyes has sold 1.3 million books, a feat she boggles at.
"It turns out I do have a genuine humility, bordering on incredulity that anybody would want to know about my life."
After a 50-year career, it’s vaguely bewildering to finally become famous for, she grins, "just being me." — The Observer
The Little Book of Miriam, by Miriam Margolyes is out now.
