Miriam Margolyes's Biography

Miriam Margolyes was born in Oxford on 18 May 1941, the only child of Jewish parents, a GP, Joseph, and a property developer, Ruth.

She studied at Newnham College, Cambridge, and was the only woman in the 1962 Cambridge Footlights.

Miriam Margolyes started her acting career in 1965 in radio when she worked for the BBC drama repertory company.

She went on to amass numerous credits, not just on radio, but in film, on television and the stage.

She played Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films and won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress in 1993 for her role in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence.

Her TV credits include Blackadder and Doc Martin as well as the Australian series The Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries.

Miriam Margolyes spends a large part of her time in Australia and has had dual citizenship, having been given Australian citizenship in 2013.

She started her world tour of the one-woman show Dickens' Women in Australia and also toured there with another show The Importance of Being Miriam.

Her partner Heather is a retired Australian academic.

Miriam Margolyes came out as gay when she was 27 years old.

In 2016, she was one of the celebrities living in India in the BBC's series The Real Marigold Hotel.

In November 2016, the BBC announced that Miriam Margolyes would star in a BBC Four comedy Bucket.

In June 2017, it was announced that BBC1 had commissioned a three-part series Miriam’s Great American Adventure, in which she goes on a journey of nearly 1,000 miles from Chicago to New Orleans.

Trivia
Her height is variously reported as 4ft 11ins and 5ft 1in.

At the age of 17, Miriam Margolyes posed nude for the painter Augustus John.

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