Harry Potter Star Admits To Hitting Paralysed Mother

As they talk about her life and career, the topic of conversation soon turns to Margolyes’ memoir This Much is True, which she released last year. 

While the 80-year-old actor is described as being ‘frank’ and ‘forthright’, Yentob asks her if there’s anything she didn’t discuss in the book. 

Margolyes responds with a very honest answer, stating: “I didn’t mention something that I should have mentioned, and that was that I hit my mother when she was paralysed.

“Anyone who’s been a carer will know how frustrating and difficult it is and I let that happen, and I’m deeply ashamed of it.”

“I hit her when she was paralysed and she forgave me.”

While speaking about their relationship earlier on in the episode, Margolyes said: “My mother was the centre of my life as I was of hers. Mummy’s girl.

“I’d been berated, actually, for calling my parents ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’ – well bollocks to that.”

While reading an excerpt from her book, Margolyes said: “Without a doubt, the most important person in my life was my mother.

“She bound me to her quite deliberately with emotional hoops of steel.”

Margolyes had said her mum described their family-of-three as a ‘Fortress’, stating: “I think that’s how she saw her place in the world – besieged.”

Yentob went on to describe how her parents escaped war-torn London in 1941 and moved to Oxford, where her dad set up a doctor’s surgery. 

In her memoir, the legendary British actor opened up about how she blamed herself for her mother falling ill, saying that her mum suffered a stroke shortly after she came out to her in her late 20s. 

“She and my father insisted I come into the drawing room and swear on the Torah never to have relations with a woman again,” she wrote.  

“I did as they asked, but I broke my promise… I always believed that my coming out in some way caused it.

“I had caused the person I loved most in the world a pain she could not bear. It was a horrendous time and I was very unhappy. 

“I knew I couldn’t change what I was; I should not have told them.”

Margolyes said her mum ‘really couldn’t handle’ her coming out, describing how homosexuality was still considered ‘shameful’ in the UK in the 60s.