The veteran actor and lesbian icon Miriam Margolyes OBE has very been candid about her health battles and illness over the years. 

The talented and outspoken performer, known for Martin Scorsese‘s The Age of Innocence and playing Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films, has undergone a major heart operation, battled with spinal stenosis and more. 

Here is everything Miriam Margolyes, who turned 84 last week, has shared about her illnesses.

Miriam Margolyes had a major heart operation

In 2023, after suffering a health scare, Margolyes underwent a procedure called transcatheter aortic valve replacement. In this procedure, a heart valve is replaced with one taken from a cow.

This isn’t the first time Margolyes has candidly shared details about her health. Appearing on the Table Manners podcast with Jessie and Lennie Ware, Margolyes shared details about her operation.

“I’ve got a cow’s heart now. Well, not the whole heart. I’ve had an aortic valve replaced by a cow’s aortic valve,” she explained. 

“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.”

She went on to share details about the operation: “They made two little holes in your groin. One in each groin and then they shoved this thing through. 

“And I don’t know how they pull it up but they sort of pull it up with stereos. And then when it comes to the point, when it’s in your heart, they pull a little string and it goes pow! 

“And lo and behold, your artery or your aortic valve is shoved unceremoniously to the side.”

Since the operation, however, she has still been worrying about her health.

She “doesn’t have long to live”

In a recent update, Margolyes estimated that she has another five or six years of life because of her illness. 

She shared the devastating news that she “doesn’t have long to live” in 2024 with The Telegraph: “When you know that you haven’t got long to live – and I’m probably going to die within the next five or six years, if not before, I’m loath to leave behind performing. It’s such a joy.

“I yearn to play roles that don’t confine me to wheelchairs, but I’m just not strong enough.”

Miriam Margolyes is registered disabled

She has candidly noted that despite the success of her surgery, she still suffers physically and with pain.

Margolyes has said she is “failing physically” due to a condition called spinal stenosis.

Spinal stenosis is an abnormal narrowing of the spinal canal that puts pressure on the spinal cord or nerve roots. Symptoms may include pain, numbness, or weakness in the arms or legs.

She has noted she now depends on walking sticks and mobility scooters to get around and has been officially registered as disabled.

Her arthritis (joint pain and inflammation) and rheumatism (pain and stiffness in the joints and muscles) are also exacerbating this.

When speaking to Radio Times last year, Margolyes shared: “When I started kind of failing physically, I remember saying to directors and producers, please don’t show me clambering out of a car or climbing upstairs on my hands and knees.

“I didn’t want people to see that because I was embarrassed to see myself looking so pathetic.”

“I’ve met loads of people who have said I gave them the courage to do things that they never thought they could. So I’m very pleased about that.”

She told the outlet she was concerned about her finances with the possibility of her condition worsening. 

“I’m worried that I won’t have enough money for carers when I finally get paralysed, or whatever it is that’s going to happen to me,” she said. 

“I’m saving up cash so that I can pay people to look after me and my partner. We don’t have children, so I need to make sure I’m going to be looked after in the way that I’ve become accustomed.”

Speaking about her thoughts on her mortality and eventual death, the star said, “I’m always quoting William Saroyan, who says: ‘I know that everyone has to die, but I thought an exception might be made in my case.’

“I know now that is definitely not true. What do I think happens after death? My therapist used to say there may be a party.

I honestly don’t think there’s anything, I think you just stop, but it would be nice if there’s a party.”

Though Margolyes may be suffering from declining health, her career is still going strong.

She stars in the short film A Friend of Dorothy, opposite Sir Steven Fry. 

The synopsis of A Friend Of Dorothy reads: “A lonely widow’s quiet life is upended when a teenage boy accidentally kicks his football into her garden.”

The film, actor Lee Knight’s directorial debut, explores themes of loneliness in old age, intergenerational friendship, and LGBTQ+ issues.

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