How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S18, Ep1 Miriam Margolyes on not marrying a nice Jewish doctor

Episode Date: September 6, 2023

WAHOOOOO! A whole new season of How To Fail, and WHAT an opening guest we have for you. Yes, it's the one and only Miriam Margolyes: actor, bestelling author and the nation's favourite talkshow guest. She's been described by Vogue as 'Britain's mischief-maker in chief' and started her career in radio and theatre, before moving into films (she won a Bafta for her role in Martin Scorcese’s The Age of Innocence and is beloved by legions of younger fans for playing Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter movies). Margolyes is a TV regular in shows such as Blackadder and Call the Midwife and is just about to publish the second instalment of her memoirs, Oh, Miriam! Today, she joins us to talk about letting down her parents, the joy of friendship, her fear of letting her body down and the lifelong regret she has over telling her mother the truth of her own sexuality. A poignant, provoking and - yes - hilarious conversation. Enjoy! -- You can order Miriam's new memoir, Oh, Miriam! here. -- How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Day. To contact us, email [e-mail] -- Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabday How To Fail @howtofailpod Miriam Margolyes @mmargolyes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and

journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. A French teacher once told Miriam Margulies that she was naughty but never wicked. It's a worthy summary of a career that has seen Miriam become something of a national treasure, not just for her undoubted talents, but for her unfiltered hilarity on television talk shows. She started her career in theatre, moved into films. She won a BAFTA for her role in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence and is beloved by legions of younger fans for playing Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter movies. And she's been a TV regular in shows such as Blackadder and Call the Midwife.

She also voiced the Cadbury's Caramel Bunny in the popular 1980s adverts and bears the notable distinction alongside her OBE of having been the first person to say fuck on national TV while competing in University Challenge in 1963. Her award-winning autobiography, This Much Is True, was in the top ten for over a year, and she is just about to publish the second instalment, Oh, Miriam. When asked why she was writing again, she replied with characteristic honesty that she was doing it for the money. Now 82, Miriam has never forgotten what it is to see the world through the truthful eyes of a much younger person. I'm still a bit of a child, she says. I can't resist naughtiness. Miriam, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you very much. It's always interesting to hear yourself

summarised like that. I never tire of it. And I always want to correct things. For instance, I started in radio and podcast is a sort of radio, isn't it? So I'm kind of going back to where I began. It is. Well, apologies. You started in radio, but I'm very relieved that you're on my podcast because in your new book, you write, and I quote, almost everyone I know seems to be setting up a podcast and the requests hurtle in. I refuse most of them. There comes a point when not only do I weary of the sound of my own voice, but I fear others will too. And I'd rather quit when I'm ahead but Miriam I'm so delighted that you've made an exception for how to fail because I've had so many people request your

appearance so thank you very much it is of course nice to be wanted I don't want to seem ungrateful it's just I worry about not being good enough or funny enough or whatever they are expecting, you know, and I can't help that. I've just got to answer the questions as honestly as I can. Well, that is a wonderful thing about you is that I believe you are fundamentally truthful. And I think that that seems quite unique. I don't think that we live in a world that values truth that much anymore. Is that something that you've always had, a desire to speak honestly? I think I've always had a desire to shock, to stun, to appall. And I realised that honesty is the best tool for doing that.

So then I just became honest all the time. And I really do think it's important. On a serious note, I think it should be compulsory from politicians. And it's the one thing they don't do. They don't tell the truth. Where does this desire to shock come from? Oh, I don't know where it comes from. I honestly, I don't know. It's just a personality trait or failure, fault. It's a very embarrassing thing to have to admit. But I know it's true. I don't want to do it all the time, but just most of the time, I think.

Do you think it has anything to do with being an only child? I'm really interested by only children. I dated a few of them. And I wonder if you think that there's anything that connects you as a genre. I don't know that there's any way of telling whether that's the cause, the root cause of my absurd behaviour. I tend to think not. I think that many only children behave perfectly normally and are good members of society, but I'm just the way I am. I don't think I can lay it honestly at the root of being sold. In your new book, O Miriam, you devise an alternative to the famous Proust questionnaire. And there are a number of questions that you think are great starting points for conversations.

So I wanted to do that very annoying journalistic thing of asking you one of your own questions, which is what is the greatest compliment you've ever been paid? I think it was from Sir Peter Hall, who called me a protean actress. I've always remembered that. Proteus was somebody in classics, Greek, I think, and he changed shape. He changed shape. And that's what creating, it changes my face, it changes my body. And I don't know how it happens, but it was a great compliment from a very great director whom I adored. So I kind of cherish that one. The next question in your questionnaire is, was it justified?

But it sounds like you did feel and you do feel that compliment was justified. I can only hope it was. I think it's true because so many people have said to me, when you do this or that character, you look quite different. And so I think I merit such praise. And when was the first time that you felt you wanted to act? I wanted to make people notice me and laugh. I think it wasn't that I wanted to act. I just wanted attention. And I'm greedy for it even now. It's pathetic. You know, this stumbling, fat old lady,

barely able to walk, farting and pissing all over the place. But I still want to be noticed. Well, I suppose farting and pissing is one way to do it, but that's the way it is. I want to be noticed. And luckily, I can be paid for being noticed. It's not something that you get thrown into jail for like you used to. Now you just go on television. Is there a period of your life when you felt unnoticed? I think there probably was. When I first started in the business, it was hard and it's still terribly hard. In fact, it's harder now than it was when I began, because I meet lots of young drama students and would-be actors, and they're all desperate and frightened and worried.

And, you know, there's not much I can do to help or only to encourage. But I think in the early days, it was very tough. Is there a sense in all of this of wanting to belong or to be accepted and being noticed might be the first step in that? Or is it actually totally the opposite, that you want to stand out? Well, I'm trying not to present myself as a basket case, which I am rapidly becoming, I fear. But I think I just want to connect. I want people to see me and to join in with me. And I love communication and contact. So I will do anything to evoke a response of some kind. It can be, of course, a pathological position to be in. I think I've mastered the pathology. I'm now just a funny little old lady. And we forgive our elderly folks for oddness.

And I think that's what I am. I'm odd because I'm still interested in things I think a lot of old people aren't. But I'm still just a little old lady. And as I always say to people, I'm a little old lady trying to make a living. I'm still working. And I think that's quite important. Well, I forgot what the question was now, but have I answered it? Yes, you have. It was about whether you felt a need to belong. And actually, you've answered it beautifully by saying that you feel a need to connect.

Yes, I want people to belong to me. I don't necessarily need to belong to them. Yes. Well, so how does that show up in your romantic relationship? Because you're very sweet about your partner, Heather, even though I know that she's private and doesn't necessarily like being written about or talked about. private and doesn't necessarily like being written about or talked about. But how does that show up in a romantic relationship? If you have this desire to connect with everyone and you speak so beautifully about the value of friendship, which I definitely want to get onto. But yes, how does that feel for your partner? This need to, well, to put it in your words, to show off or this need to connect and have people belong to you? Well, I think she thinks I'm pretty silly. She doesn't approve of my behaviour. She gets very tired and quite caustic about it. And she has never hidden that. She likes me to be a grown-up.

She likes me to be a grown-up. And every now and again, I slide into adulthood. But I slide out of it because it's not quite so comfortable as being a naughty little child. I don't think of my relationship with Heather as a romantic relationship, although it certainly is suffused with love, affection, longing, respect, delight in her company, and a little fear of what she will say to me. But I do know that she hates being talked about. She hates being an adjunct in my life. She is a very considerable private scholar

of some renown in her field. And I'm bloody lucky to have found somebody so loyal, so intelligent, and prepared to put up with me. I'm really lucky. I bless her every day. And I curse her sometimes too, of course, and she me. It is a wonderful thing to have in your life. And I have it and I hope I have it as long as I'm alive.

How beautiful. Let's talk about the power of friendship. There's a chapter in your book devoted to it. And I should at this point confess that I have also written my own book in praise of friendship. But you write in this chapter about the fact that you have over 11,000 names in your phone. I think it's more than that now. Is it more? Is it more? There she is showing off again. Yeah, you're right. But tell me about the integral importance of friendship in your life. What does it mean to you? It's supremely important. It validates my being on this earth.

And I was lucky enough to go to a fabulous school in Oxford where I was born. And the people who were at my school, the Oxford High School, are still my friends. I'm not friends with what people call now celebrities. I know quite a few, and I'm very fond of some of them, and perhaps not quite so fond of others. But the people who are my real friends are the people I've known maybe since I was 11 or 12. And the value of friendship, I can't put it into words. Friendship is something everybody knows what it means. I remember, and I often quote this, my father, who was a somewhat dour Scot, said when I said to him, Danny, why haven't you got any friends? And he said, friends,

friends are people who drag you down. That's what he said. He was wrong. Friends are people who lift me up. You mentioned your school there, Oxford High School. And I've learned from the book that you were five years behind Dame Maggie Smith. Will you tell us the story about the theatre at your old school? Well, I didn't know Dame Maggie when I was at school because, you know, a gap of whatever it is, five years, six years, it really does separate you from the lower class she was you know in the upper six and i would have been maybe in the third or fourth floor so i never met her at school and i indeed never met her until when did i first meet like i think it was probably in doing professor

sprout and she was professor mcgonigalall in Harry Potter. That's when I got to know her a bit. And I met her a wee bit in Australia, too, when she came with Maggie Tysak to do the show that they did in Australia. But she was at my school, I was at her school. And years later, I got a phone call from the current headmistress to say, And years later, I got a phone call from the current headmistress to say, Miriam, we'd love to dedicate a theatre to Dame Maggie. And we wondered if you would ask her if she would come down to Oxford and open the building and have it dedicated to her. And so, of course, I think it was when I was doing Harry Potter and I saw Maggie quite a lot. And so I went up to her and I said, Maggie, would you, you know, would you listen to me just for a second?

Because I'm passing on a message. I said, they want to dedicate a theatre in your name at the high school. They wondered if you would go down and open it. And she looked at me with that keen, askance gaze that she specialises in. I like keen, askance gaze that she specializes in. And I said, would you like to go and have a theater at the school named after you? And she said, no, no, I wouldn't. I didn't like the school. Very snobbish.

No, I'm not going. And then she looked at me rather with narrowed eyes and she said, you'd like it, wouldn't you? Why don't you go? And of course, I would have loved it. So I said, are you sure? She said, no, I'm not going. Don't want that.

Not for me, darling, not for me. In the end, I phoned the current headmistress and I told her there was a bit of a pause, rather too long for my liking. And she said, well, Miriam, would you consider opening the theatre space for us? And of course, I said, yes, I'd love to. So I did. And there it it is and it's there I went down to the school and I think it was honestly one of the best days of my whole life I was so proud and so utterly thrilled to have that recognition of who I was and what I had been at the school because I did a lot of acting at school and I just felt absolutely bloody marvellous. Congratulations I'm thrilled about that and what

an amazing thing for girls at that school to look up and see your name as inspiration every time they go into that theatre. The other thing that has been quite the feather in your cap and caused an enormous amount of joy on this side of, what ocean is it between here and Australia? I don't know. You're in Australia at the moment. Anyway. Pacific. Pacific. Thanks so much. I'm terrible at geography. So on this side of the Pacific, everyone has been thrilled to see your Vogue profile and your Vogue shoot. What was that like? Can you bloody believe it? Bloody hell. I cannot. Miriam, it was iconic. You looked incredible. Well, it took 20 people to make me look like that. It was only about, I think it was about, I know, two and a half months ago, just before I came out to Australia. I mean, when I got that

email, it was sent to me by my agents. And I thought someone's having a laugh. That can't be right. Vogue. I mean, I've never looked at Vogue. It's the sort of magazine that you get in high class hairdressers, where I never go, and Ponzi hotels, where I only go for a photo shoot. Anyway, it happened. I think it's brilliant. The entire credit should go to Tim Walker, who was the photographer. He's a very distinguished photographer. He's got an exhibition in New York, and he's a lovely bloke.

I was discombobulated, totally. I didn't know how anybody would work with me, what it would be like, what was I supposed to be? I knew that it was the gay pride issue. So it was because I was an old dyke that they wanted me in the magazine. But I never thought about a cover photograph. And the one of me with my tits on cream buns I

mean that was his idea of course that was Tim being naughty he said to me would you strip off I said why and he said well I've got an idea for a photo and I said well I don't want my belly in the picture because it's too horribly fat and ugly you know I don't want your belly either, but we can arrange it in such a way. And I did strip off and blow me. It was a bloody good picture. So I've told everybody about it and I'm thrilled to bits. Good. Final question before we get onto your failures. How does it feel at the age of 82 to be experiencing, it's not even a flowering of your career because you've always been incredibly successful in so many ways but there is a level of attention and a level of

connection that you have with younger generations is that a nice feeling oh it's wonderful it's truly wonderful and thrilling and totally amazing. I can't get over it. I can't get over it. When I'm out in the street, even here in Australia, people, you know, they're waiting, saying, oh, it's you. What's your name? I've seen you on the telly. You know, and I am deeply grateful and utterly thrilled. It's just magic. I'm deeply grateful and utterly thrilled. It's just magic. Your first failure, Miriam, is, in your words, not marrying a nice Jewish doctor.

So tell us about this. Did you feel under a certain amount of pressure to marry a nice Jewish doctor? Well, ask any Jewish girl. And of course they feel pressure because we're very family conscious. And we, most of us adore our parents as I did mine. And I, I knew it was never going to happen. I didn't know I was gay. I just knew I wasn't very attractive and that I wouldn't be the sort of person that a Jewish boy with potential would want. So I felt sad. And then in the end, I felt crushed because I never gave the people I loved most, who are my parents, I never gave them the satisfaction of grandchildren and a family life and that kind of security in the future. I never gave them what they so longed for. And I knew what they wanted and they knew I knew. And it didn't happen.

On the contrary, I dashed their hopes. I took away the promise of something delightful for them. And I feel deeply guilty. But there was nothing I could do. You know, if you're not straight, you're not. If you're a homosexual or whatever you want to call it, you are. And I am. And I always was. I didn't know it. But oh, well, it's done now, love. It's done now. Will you tell me about your parents? What were they like? My parents were good people. My mother was uneducated, shrewd, affectionate, a very good cook, a very good businesswoman, always with an eye on improving the situation. She was a good dresser,

she was good with clothes. She wasn't educated, but she was refined. She had an aesthetic sense. She could sing like an angel, she could play the piano, she could dance, all things I can't do. And she could make money. Well, maybe I can do that in a different way. She was, I would say, lower middle class. My grandfather, her father, was a second-hand furniture salesman in southeast London. He was utterly adorable. He was an amateur magician.

He could throw a pack of cards in the air and balance it between his two hands. They had the charm gift. I think I've got charm, and I get it from that side of the family. My father was an introvert. He was a scholar. He was a doctor, a GP, a very good doctor, serious. You could almost say humorless, I think, and afraid, always afraid, afraid of losing his money, his position in life, afraid of what people might think or what they would not think. He did not have security. And maybe that goes with being Jewish. I don't know, because his parents certainly loved him. But I think they also, because they were, his parents were from Russia and Poland, and they would have been familiar with pogroms and people wanting to murder them because they were Jews. But he never had security. because they were Jews. But he never had security.

I used to get so cross because when there was a problem, mummy used to handle it. It should have been his problem to be handled, but he would always say, you speak, Ruth, Ruth, you speak, you speak. And mummy would sort it. And I used to think, you wimp. Why?

Why aren't you doing it? It's your business. But that was my parents. And I love them both. I love mummy more because I understood her more. And I was closer to her. Daddy was a little aloof, not because he didn't love me. He did not have the tools for expressing emotion. And mummy did. Thank you so much for giving that insight, because I think it's easy to forget, because you are someone with such a youthful spirit, that your father was of the Great War generation. And I wonder, you know, that must have been an

incredibly traumatic thing to live through. Although I know he didn't see active service. Have I got that right? I read that somewhere. Well, my grandfather, Grandpa Margulies, he bribed the commander of the 4th Battalion Highland Light Infantry to take my father's name off the draft. So he did not join his friends on the fields of Flanders. He survived. He did not go. He did not go to france and he became a doctor instead and if it hadn't been for the venality of that scottish officer i wouldn't be here today talking to you but it was of course a shocking thing to bribe someone but if you save a life does it matter so my morals are sort of a bit iffy on that one. I would have done the same thing. I forgot what you asked me now. I was so busy thinking about

my father. No, it was a question about living through the Great War, albeit not in the fields of Flanders, but just living as part of that generation when that generation of men was decimated by what they experienced. And you were saying that he was rather aloof and he didn't have the tools to express his emotion. And I suppose being of that generation, it was incredibly difficult to be able to convey how you were feeling. I think not only was it difficult to do so, but it was perhaps considered not the thing. It wasn't quite the thing. It wasn't commisur to express or display emotion of any kind. So Daddy was buttoned up. And I have been unbuttoning ever since I was born. I have been unbuttoning ever since I was born.

Yes, I love that. And my question off the back of that was where you think your humour comes from? Oh, the toilet, probably. My humour, where does it come from? I mean, a bit of it's probably just Jewish, because Jewish people laugh so that they don't cry. And I enjoy it. I enjoy making people laugh so that they don't cry. And I enjoy it. I enjoy making people laugh. I want a response. So I say things that perhaps are funny

in order to be able to make people laugh so that I can hear the laughter. And if I hear somebody laughing at something I've done or said, I know I'm alive. I'm alive. I'm alive. Peyton, it's happening. We're finally being recognized for being very online.

It's about damn time. I mean, it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct. You're such a Leo. All the time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions. If you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second. Then join me, Hunter Harris.

And me, Peyton Dix. The host of Wondery's newest podcast, Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mass, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news. Like it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides. Don't you worry.

The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise. Mother. A mother to many. Follow Let Me Say This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?

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You said at the beginning of this failure that you didn't know you were gay even though you were and i know that when you told your mother you have regrets over telling her don't you i have profound regrets that i told my mother that I was having a sexual relationship with a woman. It was indulgent of me. It was partly because I told her everything. We always confided in each other. I had nothing hidden from her. And when it happened to me that I was thankfully, I don't know what you call it,

punctured, entered, deflowered. I don't know what the word is for it. Anyway, I was given a good going over by a woman and it was just fabulous. You know, when you have good sex for the first time, you honestly think, whoopee, I might do that again, I think. I shared it with her and it utterly disgusted her shocked her and her horizon was darkened from that moment and I who loved her with all my heart genuinely I did that knowingly to my I didn't know it was going to have such an effect but I should have thought about it and

that's what I always say to people who are working out whether to tell their families or not tell them if they can bear it and if they can't bear it don't tell them and I know my dear and wonderful friend Ian McKellen I'm not a close friend but've admired him. And I really do admire him for a very long time. Brilliant, gifted man and a nice man. He disagrees with me profoundly. So, you know, you do what you want to do. But I don't think you should if you think that it's going to destroy the other person. I just don't. Do you believe in an afterlife? No, I do not believe in an afterlife. I think we do it now while we can, or not at all. I'm not waiting until I'm dead to get the marmalade.

And have you ever been able to forgive yourself for what you perceive to be that self-indulgence that you believe affected your mother in that way that's a very difficult thing to live alongside without self-forgiveness I blame myself still but I didn't know. Now I know I would not do it again. And I'm sorry that I did it. But I can't castigate myself forever. That would be too pointless, I think. I wish I hadn't done it. I wish I hadn't hurt her. But I am gay. And I'm happy being gay. I couldn't bear to be straight, quite honestly. So here I am, a sad and happy old dyke. Oh, gosh, these phrases that come out of your mouth are just so perfect. But that failure of not marrying a nice Jewish doctor as you put it is also and I don't perceive

it as a failure but I understand what you're getting at there's a rejection there of a heteronormative life and part of a heteronormative life one might say is having children and you have never had children I don't think you've ever wanted children how do you feel about not having had children at the age of 82? Thankful. Thankful that I hadn't had children. My God, I couldn't deal with them. I would have been a terrible mother. No, I knew I wasn't going to have children. And when I was, I think, 34, I had my womb removed because I had fibroids. It had to be removed. Ovaries remained, by the way. Children have their place in the world.

They must be cherished and educated and adored and shown the way and helped all the time, all the time. But you don't have to have them. And I didn't have them. You have them for me. And thank you. Well, how lovely of you to say, but I don't have children. And I have wanted to. But I am now at peace with not having them.

So I went through a whole period of time of attempting and fertility treatment. And now I've decided that I'm not going to expend more energy on that. And it's why I love hearing stories such as yours, because there is an enormous amount of joy and creativity in a different way to be had, even if you're not a biological parent. And there are points in your book where you talk about speaking to your friend's granddaughter and having lovely conversations with her. And I think that you do a wonderful job parenting younger generations through your art, if that doesn't sound too pretentious. I'm sorry that you had sorrow and difficulty associated with the attempts to become a mother,

because I know how defeating and how awful it makes you feel, because I've had many friends in similar situations. But I think the younger generation, those that follow, they are vital. We must make a better world than we have done for them. We must cherish, as I say, and support them. But we don't actually have to be their mothers. Those who can be mothers will be mothers. And some will be perfect and some will be vile and wicked. It's just the luck of the draw, I suppose. But I've never felt the need. I've never felt

less of a woman because I didn't have children. Thank you, Miriam. That's very moving. Your second failure is Franny's Turn. And the way that you wrote it to me was that it was the big break that didn't work out. Tell us about Franny's Turn. Franny's Turn was the title of an American sitcom, which I was cast in as the lead in, I think it was 1989, I think. I was secured as a talent by a very good producer called Norman Lear, whom I met in America. He's still alive. He's over 100.

And he loves talent and he nurtures talent. And he spotted me as a talent. And he found somebody to write for me. And I had a show. And it was crap. It just was. Everybody thought it was going to be wonderfully successful, because I had this fetching personality and Americans couldn't get over me because they are weird and a little bit deprived, I think, intellectually. And they just couldn't believe in Miriam Margulies. They thought she was fabulous,

but they didn't really like Franny's turn. And I was sorry because I loved the people that were in it with me. I had some glorious other actors and it was such fun. We were on the lot at CBS CBS, in the next stage to Roseanne, who was an arsehole. Everybody loathed her. And I loved it when all the crew would come into me and say, oh, boy, gee, I wish I were working on your show, Miriam. You know, people, you treat people like people. She's just, you can't imagine what she's like. And, you know, all the stories would come and I would I would wonder why was she so horrid but she did very well she became a multi-millionaire and I

am not that but I think I'd rather be me really but anyway there it was I signed a contract for 13. And in fact, only five were put out. We only made five. And then the head of CBS thought it was such crap. He was probably right. He took it off. And a lot of people made a lot of fuss about it, but it stayed off. And I was officially a failure. How interesting, because there were so many things that you would think on paper would make it a raging success. So the fact that it was Norman Lear, and you were in it, and there were terrific actors, and it was Chuck Lorre. So he was called the king of sitcoms, and he produced sitcoms like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, and in fact, Roseanne. So you would think with all of those things in situ, that it would be a raging

success. Why didn't it work? I think because it wasn't good enough. It just didn't catch fire. And I was really sorry, because the guy who was playing my husband was a Cuban actor called Tomas Millian. And I adored him. He was so clever, so witty. And I was the representative of modern woman, you know, the feminist, the emerging feminist. So it did have some political bite and sense to it, but it just didn't work. Everybody said, you're going to be so rich,

you're going to be the king of the world, you're just going to love it. And I knew as they were saying that, I thought, uh-uh, it's not going to happen. Because I knew it was funny, it was truthful, but it didn't have the magic. And I have to accept that. What was it like then when it was taken off air after five episodes? Did it feel humiliating? Yes, I think it did feel humiliating. I remember very well that suddenly nobody phoned me.

Absolutely nobody. I, who had been lauded and invited out all the time with the phone banging in my ear the whole day. Complete silence. It was salutary, and it wasn't to be. But I got over the humiliation. I mean, I think it's sort of funny now. I actually think it's funny.

I don't think we should be running over to America to do sitcoms and, you know, make names for ourselves. We should be doing it here. Don't let's pander to the absurdity of the American pop culture. It's very tawdry, really. And I'm not saying that because I didn't succeed in that tawdry world. I see it for what it is. But the problem is, I love money. I just do. And that was a way to get money quickly. You hear about Friends, you know, the sitcom called Friends. I've never actually seen it, but it's a well-known sitcom. They get a million dollars an episode. For fuck's sake, episode for fuck's sake that is that's overpaid I'm sorry yeah that is overpaid it's interesting there that you touch on that idea of Hollywood as a representation in popular culture of success

there is a real culture of quote-unquote success means. And I wonder, given your long career, what does success mean to you? And is it different from what you have been told success in acting looks like? Success comes in two little suitcases, the success that you think of for yourself and the success others perceive in you. And I don't feel at the moment particularly successful as an actress, but I do feel successful as a human being. I believe that people are relating to me as a human being. That is an important matter. I'm very proud of that. When I go out in the street around, you know, people run up to me and say, oh, I love you. I love you. And I think, why? Why do you love me? You don't know me. But there's something in my gaze, in my words I say, in the way I present myself,

which people feel comfortable with. They feel they can trust me. And that is important. And I am deeply grateful. That's what Boris Johnson, God rot his balls, does not have. But on the other hand, nobody would say Miriam Margulies, great actress. I'm not a bad actress, actually, and I can be fantastic, but not perhaps as often as I should have been. And I'm sorry about that. I haven't achieved what I'd hoped. I've achieved much more than that in terms of public approbation. But the approbation is not for my skill. It's for my personality, which I rate below my skill. I think I would prefer to be lauded for being a fine actress because I think I can be. a fine actress, because I think I can be. But so far, that level of approbation has been reserved for the personality of Miriam Margulies and not the skill.

What an extraordinarily insightful and eloquent answer. I personally do feel that you are a great actress. And I think that possibly we have a tendency as humans to undermine ourselves when something comes naturally. And the joy of being yourself and being this connector with other people and being trustworthy and being a truth teller, my perception is that comes naturally to you. It is part of you as a person and so perhaps it's that you don't rate it as much in yourself because it doesn't come naturally to a lot of people and a lot of other people would probably see that as a skill there's no question there I just wanted to say that that it makes me sad that you feel the perception of you doesn't tally with what you might have liked to have achieved? I'm not distraught. I'm not rendered incapable by my failure. On the other hand, I would say,

but I'm still going. And you never know, I might surprise you one day. Yes. I want you to get an Oscar in your 80s. That's the goal I'm setting for you. Okay. Your final failure is just two words. And you said your final failure is being fat. Why did you pick this, Miriam? The funny thing is that when you asked me to appear

or to enunciate or whatever a podcast, the verb associated with podcasting is, I was very flattered. But I thought, I haven't failed. What can I fail at? I haven't been a failure, really. I talked to my publisher, my editor, and she was the one who suggested the two that you have talked about so far, because I didn't see them as failures up till quite recently. But then I thought the one thing that I have not conquered and that I should have conquered is my weight. I am a blubber mass. I am fat. And to be fat and 82 is truly pathetic. Today, when I went to the physio next door, I met some really smashing people who wanted to,

you know, they run out and say, oh, come and have a cup of tea and have a chat. And one of them was a very distinguished lady who was fat. And I said to her, don't be fat. And everybody was a bit shocked because I said the word. It's something they're so frightened of in America. But I mean, this isn't America, I'm in Australia, but it's such a defeat. A cream bun, a chocolate, a helping of chopped liver is more important than your health, than your aesthetic presentation. No, it isn't. It's not more important. It's just greed, lack of discipline, all the things that I'm embarrassed by in myself. It is a major failure. And because of that, I've got spinal stenosis.

I can't walk. I'm going to be in a wheelchair before I'm much older. I've limited my life because of my longing for fudge or, yes, chopped liver, cheesecake, all these absurdities. I shouldn't have been so greedy. I should have been stronger. I mean, look at Patricia Hodge, one of my great friends. She's a gorgeous looking woman in her 70s. She can do whatever she wants to do. There's no limit to her mobility and her beauty. And I fucked everything up by greed. I think it's shameful.

greed. I think it's shameful. Oh, Miriam, but another way of looking at greed is joy. I mean, you've spoken about the health issues now, which I can completely understand. When you were younger, was there a sense of shame over your aesthetic presentation? Oh, tremendous. Mummy would say, Miriam, take a pride in your appearance. And I never did. I never cared about clothes or fashion. That's why being on Vogue was out of the blue. I just wasn't interested in my presentation. I knew I had good eyes, vivid hair, and a lovely smile and I thought and I haven't been far wrong that it would carry me through life so fuck dresses and you know handbags and all that stuff it's not about that it's about preserving the body that you were brought into the world with many people don't have good bodies they have paralysis or something's not quite right I was perfect I was a perfect little baby I was gorgeous mummy told me people would stop the pram just so

they could look at me and I would look at them with my big dark eyes and they would say, she is truly beautiful. I heard it all my life. And then I let it go. My belly drooped, my tits expanded. In fact, even when I was at school, my nipples burst through the wool of my school jumper. They were only with these two little circles of urgency. They were all with these two little circles of urgency. I mean, I fucked up. I really fucked up with my body. I'm sorry for that because I did the wrong thing. It was lovely having cheesecake and chopped liver and spaghetti and, you know, all the things I shouldn't have.

I did enjoy it. But mummy said, a minute on the lips and forever on the hips. She was right. There's another way of looking at it, of course, which is that your refusal to compromise on being yourself and the embodiment of yourself is in its own way a revolutionary act. In a world which encourages so many women particularly to look a certain way to feel shame over themselves actually the presentation of yourself I think a lot of people get a lot of comfort from it and I wonder if you've ever thought of that aspect that actually you're being quietly revolutionary well I hadn't thought of that. But the director of the piece that I'm involved in at the moment,

when I complained that she showed me kind of huffing and puffing and finding difficulty going upstairs and, you know, doing mobile things, I said, I don't want to be seen as a cripple. I don't want that. Don't put me on television having difficulty moving. And she said, but Miriam, don't you see that that is an encouragement to people watching who may themselves have difficulties? And you being there on telly and being yourself, that gives people courage.

And I thought about it. And I thought, well, that may be true. Seeing this hideous old bag lurching about their television screens might give them confidence. And that is a good thing, because I only want to help. I don't want to hinder people. But from my own point of view, I would have liked to have been, you know, somebody. I mean, look at Camilla, our queen, actually. She's a good looking woman. She's got her body in trim. I like her as a person. I don't know her terribly well, but I know her a bit because I, you know, when you're in the business, you get asked to do things. because I, you know, when you're in the business, you get asked to do things. And she's splendid.

And she took care of herself. And I didn't. It wasn't joy. It was laziness. It was greed. And I regret it. I would like to be better looking. I would like to have a flatter tummy and a stronger back and longer legs. But, you know, fuck it.

Here I am. That's it. Do you think you're happy? Well, it varies. I'm not happy when I think about myself being old and ill and not able to do the things I want to do. But I feel unbelievably happy and proud when I think of the work I've done and the people that I know who care about me and my relationship. You know, in that way, I have succeeded. I've been a human being. Is there anything better? Miriam Margulies, I just can't think of a better place to bring this to a close. You are a wonderful human being and we are all so lucky to exist in your orbit. Thank you so much for coming on How to Fail.

That's such a lovely thing to say. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode of how to fail with elizabeth day i would so appreciate it if you could rate review and subscribe apparently it helps other people know that we exist