Modern-day celebrities could learn a thing or two from outrageous octogenarian Miriam Margolyes

The latest Imagine… movie, Miriam Margolyes: To win (` One), was a quietly revealing portrait. That doesn’t seem very fitting for an actress who delights in being provocative and who has made her mark as an outrageous talk show guest late in life. Richard E Grant, a former co-star, described her as follows: “I think her volume control fell off at birth. She’s like a five-year-old dressing up as an eighty-year-old.”

The couple appeared together in Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of The Age of Innocence in 1993; Grant recalled that while Margolyes was getting into hair and makeup, she decided to liven things up by lifting her t-shirt and exposing her breasts. Margolyes explained that she just wanted to cheer everyone up at the end of a long day.

However, it became clear from the program that this behavior is a cover-up. Margolyes spoke of the pain and humiliation she felt at school dances as a teenager, a “fat and awkward” wallflower who was never asked to dance. Her subsequent career in the spotlight, we learned, was all about “seeking attention, approval, and love.”

It’s not limited to the screen or appearing on The Graham Norton Show. The film began amusingly with presenter Alan Yentob lurking behind a hedge and watching Margolyes sit on the steps outside her front door, engaging passers-by in conversation. Apparently she does that often.

Her career is impressive – this profile barely scratched the surface but mentioned Blackadder, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, Call the Midwife, Harry Potter, various Dickens adaptations and her Bafta for The Age of Innocence. Most people know that she was Cadbury’s Caramel Bunny in the famous 1980’s commercials, but did you know that in the 1970’s Manikin Cigars commercials she played the border collie in Babe, a PG Tips chimpanzee and a gave her voice to a spirited model? The director
The latter marveled upon hearing Margolyes: “I can’t believe that voice comes from this body.”

Margolyes is pathologically honest, admitting here that she once hit her paralyzed mother when the stress of being her caregiver got too much. She’s also been open about everything else, from her career insecurities to sex, and admitted that she felt both amused and delighted by her latest stage of fame as she enters her ninth decade. Some people find them too gross and too much. But in a world where so many celebrities are PR-trained bores, we should be thankful for someone who makes the effort to entertain us.