Miriam Margolyes

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Miriam Margolyes OBE (born May 18, 1941) is a British character actress.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Acting career 1.3 Personal life 2 Select filmography 3 Television 4 Theatre 5 Documentary 6 External links

Biography

Early life

Born in Oxford, England to a Jewish family of Belarusian origin, Margolyes attended the local Oxford High School. She then attended Newnham College, Cambridge where she began acting in her 20s, in productions by the Gay Sweatshop company. She is one of Britain's most sought after supporting players, and has appeared in a number of successful feature films.

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. 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 has iconic status within the world of comedy for her remarkably tasteless performance as the Spanish Infanta alongside Rowan Atkinson in Blackadder, and also for portraying a riotously naughty version of Queen Victoria in Blackadder's Christmas Carol. She is currently starring in the London production of Wicked as Madame Morrible. She is soon finishing up her role as Madame Morrible at the end of March!

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". She took time out of her career to look after her ill mother, and spent quarter of a million pounds on full time carers for her father. She is a campaigner for a respite care charity.

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, becoming the first person to use the word 'Fuck' on British Television (but that no recording of the incident survives to confirm this).

Select filmography

• Yentl (1983) - Sarah
• Little Shop of Horrors (1986 film)
• A Little Princess (1986)
• Little Dorrit (1988) - Flora
• The Age of Innocence (1993) - Mrs. Mingott
• Immortal Beloved (1994) - Nanette Streicherová
• The Thief and the Cobbler (1995) - the voice of the Maiden from Mombassa (original version only; the character was never heard at all in the re-edited versions and another actor was never available all in the re-edited versions)
• Cold Comfort Farm (1996) - Mrs. Beetle
• Different for Girls (1996) - Pamela
• Babe and Babe: Pig in the City - the voice of Fly the Sheepdog
• James and the Giant Peach - Aunt Sponge, and the voice of the Glowworm
• William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1996) - The Nurse
• Vanity Fair (1998) - Miss Crawley
• Magnolia (1999) - Faye Barringer
• Sunshine (1999) - Rose Sonnenschein
• Cats & Dogs (2001) - Sophie
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) - Professor Sprout
• Ladies in Lavender (2004)
• The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) - Peg Sellers -note this film was shown in theatres in the UK - it aired on cable television on the HBO network in the US
• Happy Feet (2006)

Television

• A Kick Up the Eighties (1981)
• Dawn French's Girls Who Do Comedy Three part TV series(2006)
• Jam and Jerusalem (2006) - Joyce Midge
• Blackadder - Infanta Maria Escalosa of Spain
• Blackadder II - Lady Whiteadder
• Blackadder's Christmas Carol - Queen Victoria
• Take a Letter, Mr. Jones - Maria

Theatre

• Wicked (2006) as Madame Morrible - Apollo Victoria Theatre, London

Documentary

• Dickens in America - writer/presenter

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