13 September 2023 , 10:44
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Miriam Margolyes has unleashed a scathing critique on Fawlty Towers star John Cleese, branding his career as "sour" and dismissing him as irrelevant.
The 82-year-old actress didn't mince words when discussing the 83-year-old actor, whom she derisively referred to as a "puny tadpole of a person". Margolyes recounted her experiences with Cleese and the late Graham Chapman during their university days at Cambridge, where she alleges they treated her poorly.
During the early 1960s, Margolyes was part of the student sketch troupe Cambridge Footlights, performing alongside Cleese and Chapman. However, she claims she was "completely ignored" as the only woman in the group.
Margolyes went on to accuse her fellow students, John and Graham, of being "poisonous" towards her. In an interview with The Guardian, she stated: "I think they thought I was too full of myself because in those days women were literally not allowed to join the club. Graham Chapman and John Cleese were poisonous."
Miriam claimed that John is now "irrelevant" (Dave J Hogan/Getty Images)Not stopping there, Margolyes further lambasted Cleese, criticising his current standing in the entertainment industry. She said, "John was a brilliant comedian in his day, but something has turned. Like milk, he's gone sour. He's an irrelevance." In a candid revelation, the Harry Potter actress praised her co-stars, Michael Palin and Eric Idle, referring to Palin as "a special man" and describing Idle as a "lovely" friend.
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The actress has previously alleged that Bill Oddie, who was part of John's circle at their institution, harboured a dislike for her. In 2021, John took to his official Twitter page to address these claims. He tweeted: "Miriam Gargoyles says that Graham Chapman, Bill Oddie and I behaved badly towards her when she was in the 1962 Footlights Revue."
John defended his old friend Bill Oddie, stating, "He wasn't in the 1962 Footlights revue." He later apologised for misspelling Miriam's surname in his initial tweet. The controversy first came to light in Miriam's 2021 book, This Much is True: There's Never Been a Me. In it, she expressed admiration for the later creations of Monty Python and The Goodies but criticised the men involved, calling them geniuses but "not gentlemen".
She wrote, "If you think about it, the Monty Python shows didn't feature funny women, only the occasional dolly bird. And I certainly wasn't that." She further claimed that the treatment she received from the Footlights boys was "diminishing, pointed and vicious. On reflection, it is they who diminished themselves."
She concluded by alleging that John, Bill, and Graham were "total s***s" who had "never apologised" for their purported behaviour.
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