Miriam Margolyes makes plans for 'last days' with partner after health scare
Harry Potter star Miriam Margolyes has revealed that she is making plans for her 'last days' after opening up about her health issues last year.
Speaking to podcaster Adam Buxton, she explained how she wanted to live out her 'final days' in Italy with her 'perfect' partner Heather Sutherland, but 'Brexit and all that nonsense' means that it is no longer feasible.
She said: "So, our plans for our ending together, to be together until we both stop, then we can't do that and that is really irritating. So, we're working out now, or trying to work out what we do with our last days, because death is the last big thing as I say, and I think we need to prepare for it."
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Only last year, the 83-year-old underwent a gruelling heart procedure as she was fitted with a cow's aortic valve.
Speaking of her health scare on the Table Manners podcast, she said: “I’ve got a cow’s heart.
“Well, not the whole heart. I’ve had an aortic valve replaced by a cow’s aortic valve.”
When host Jessie Ware asked whether it was a 'common' procedure to be transplanted with such a peculiar body part, Miriam jokingly said: “I think it’s rather refined, actually… I don’t know how common it is, I’d never heard of that operation. But it saves you from having open heart surgery, which would be infinitely more invasive.”
As the veteran actress continued her conversation with Adam, she called out how she perceived people to talk about death as she said: "I think people are embarrassed by death.
"One of the things that I was saying, last night I was in Cardiff and I was talking about death and I said it's an embarrassment, people say 'pass away' instead of die and I don't like that, I always say die and death.
She continued: "I prefer to be absolutely on the nail with it and people are embarrassed by it, they don't talk about somebody who's recently died and I always do. If I hear somebody's husband has died, I will always say 'I'm so sorry to hear that your husband's died, tell me about it if you want to', because I think that is genuine, that's facing a true fact and dealing with it."
Many know Miriam best for playing Professor Sprout in Harry Potter, but the pinnacle of the actresses career might have come when she won a BAFTA for her role in The Age of Innocence in 1993.