5 minute read
JULIE WALTERS
JULIE WALTERS A NATIONAL TREASURE
WHEN Julie Walters first really burst onto the British consciousness as the feisty hairdresser wanting to better herself in Educating Rita the nation was captivated.
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This love affair with the slightly-built actress with the high cheekbones and the chameleon acting abilities has continued ever since – through must-see TV series, compelling theatre and memorable films.
Julie still has traces of the Birmingham accent of her childhood, born the youngest of three children in Edgbaston. She wanted to act from an early age but her Irish-born, iron-willed mother wanted her only daughter to become a nurse.
She dutifully applied to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham but, eventually, the pull of acting proved too strong and she went to study English and Drama at Manchester Polytechnic.
From here she joined a Liverpool theatre company and apprenticed as a stand-up comic, leading to stage appearances and a bawdy act on the cabaret circuit. Her time in Manchester also led to meeting and collaborating with aspiring writer and comedienne Victoria Wood.
Two of their joint works Talent and Nearly A Happy Ending were snapped up by TV, to rave reviews, and in 1981 they were given their own TV series Wood and Walters.
The previous year, Julie had been a huge success starring in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s West End stage production of Educating Rita. For this in 1980, she won both the Variety Critic’s and London Critic’s Circle awards.
When the film adaptation was planned, Julie seemed an automatic choice for the main role but was not considered bankable enough by producers who favoured Dolly Parton for the role. When Michael Cain was cast, however, Julie was chosen and went on to receive her first Oscar nomination for this performance.
In 1984, she reunited with Victoria Wood for their winning TV partnership, notably in Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV. One of this series’ best regular slots was Acorn Antiques, with plotlines as
shaky as the scenery, and one of the main characters was general dogsbody Mrs Overall.
In this role, all Julie Walters’ comedic skills seemed to come together, mutually complimenting Victoria Wood’s writing skills, to create an iconic character which really engaged with the nation – and still does thanks to telly repeats.
Dinnerladies proved another remarkably success series with a talented cast including Julie as the mother of Victoria Wood’s character. This was in spite of Julie being only three years older than Victoria!
By then, audiences were used to the reliability of Julie Walters’ comic skills but at the same time she was also gaining plaudits for her stage work in more serious roles like Macbeth, The Rose Tattoo and All My Sons. She won a Laurence Olivier Award for the latter.
Unafraid to stretch her acting skills, though, she embarked on a series of film roles which definitely took her away from lightweight comedy roles. Her turn as brothel madame Cynthia Payne in the very successful 1987 film Personal Services demonstrated the breadth of Julie’s acting skills.
She was the unsophisticated, small-town wife of Phil Collins in Buster the following year and the man-chasing mum in Killing Dad or How to Love Your Mother in 1989.
She starred with Liza Minella as a tap student in Stepping Out in 1991 and was remarkable as Joe Orton’s mother in the critically acclaimed Prick Up Your Ears in 1987.
Perhaps one of her best films was the stern but encouraging dance teacher in Billy Elliott in 2000 which earned her a second Oscar nomination. Julie was now a popular choice for a range of highprofile roles and in 2003 she joined Helen Mirren in the hugely popular Calendar Girls, all about the WI ladies who posed nude for a charity calendar.
Julie played the maternal wife Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter films, bringing her usual quirky personality and warmth to this ongoing role.
Her more recent films include Wah-Wah in 2005, Becoming Jane in 2007 and in 2008 she went into unchartered waters with the mega musical hit film Mamma Mia! In 2018, she reprised the same role in the equally popular Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again!
In between, she fitted in surprise hit Paddington in 2014 and then Paddington 2 in 2017, Mary Poppins Returns in 2018 and The Secret Garden in 2020.
She is about to impress us once more on the small screen with a new Channel 4 drama series Truelove where the hype promises it “breaks he rules for older characters on screen”.
It’s a love story with a thriller element set against what happens when we age. Julie joins a starry cast including Clarke Peters, Phil Davis and Peter Egan and, unsurprisingly, the series is much anticipated. Away from TV, film and theatre, Julie, now 72, is married to Grant Roffey and they have a daughter, Maisie.
Julie has had numerous awards and accolades including an OBE in 1999 and a CBE in 2008. Industry recognition for her work in film and TV includes five awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
Her seemingly star-studded life, though, has not all been plain sailing. Her daughter suffered from lymphoblastic leukaemia when she was two years old and received treatment until she was four, getting the all-clear at aged six.
Julie herself was diagnosed with Stage 3 bowel cancer in 2018 but, after surgery and chemotherapy, she entered remission.
She is very straightforward about her life and career. “I think there was a breakthrough period where I did Educating Rita and Victoria Wood’s work very close together,” she has stated.
“I’d just started to be known through Victoria’s stuff with Wood and Walters, which came out very close to Educating Rita. It was a quite a grand slam in a way for me, really useful for me doing those two things.”
As for life generally, she believes “Self worth is everything. Without it life is a misery.” And on the future:
And when it comes to Julie Walters’ career, anything usually does.
