Miriam Margolyes to 'quit UK' and move to Italy with rarely-seen partner

Miriam Margolyes is set to leave the country and live abroad with her partner. The Harry Potter actress, 84, has been in a relationship with Heather Sutherland, 82, for nearly six decades and has now revealed that she and her partner have plans to relocate to Tuscany in Italy as they are in need of somewhere 'beautiful' to live, as she addressed her health status.

The former Call the Midwife star is based in London whilst historian Heather lives in Amsterdam, but is looking forward to enjoying time with her partner once they have moved, especially while she is still 'mentally crisp'.

She said: "The world around us has lost its charm. And we just want each other in a beautiful place which we know. We can toddle along and laugh and just quietly subside into old age. But together. We’re here for such a short time. It’s gone so fast. Mentally, I'm still fairly crisp."

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Miriamwas then asked for her biggest 'gripe' in life and admitted that it was the 'greed' of it all, and how others feel the need to show off how much they have.

She told The Observer: "The greed and the insistence on externals. What people look like, how much money they have, Botox, all that nonsense. When you kiss someone, you don’t want ‘filler’. You want the mouth. You want the subtle yielding of skin that belongs to someone you love or desire."

Fans of the actress, who has been on screen for several decades now, will know that she keeps her private life guarded and recently spoke out about their long-distance relationship that they have navigated for a number of years

Despite the couple having been together since 1968, Miriam explained how they live their lives separately due to their high-flying careers. Appearing on podcast Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware, Miriam confessed: "I'm in love with my partner and have been for 54 years. We don’t live together because we’re both professional women.

"She is a historian and an academic, and I’m an actress and a documentarian now. Her work is in Indonesian and Dutch, and so she lives in Amsterdam, but we try to be together as much as possible."

Miriam and Australian-born Heather only live together properly when they are staying in Italy, where they own a house. And although she visits her in Holland, she revealed Heather isn’t a fan of London where she resides most of the time.

The pair met when Miriam was introduced to Heather by a mutual friend in London and knew the minute she saw her that she "wanted her" but it wasn’t an instant connection for the couple, as Heather didn’t believe Miriam was gay at first and thought she was too noisy, which Miriam agrees with.

However, she managed to win Heather over in the 1960s, and since then, the pair has been married in a civil partnership ceremony. But unlike Miriam, Heather prefers to stay out of the spotlight, so the couple has rarely been pictured in public together.

Although they are happily married, it took Miriam a lot to come out to her parents, especially as her mother didn't take it well. Her mother later suffered a string of severe strokes and sadly passed away in 1974.

Writing in her 2021 autobiography, Miriam said: "I always believed that my coming out in some way caused it. 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."

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