Miriam Margolyes ‘utterly bereft’ after death of actor friend Marian Diamond

Miriam Margolyes has been left “bereft” over the death of her actor friend Marian Diamond, aged 89.

The Harry Potter actor, 85, announced the news in a tribute shared to Facebook, revealing the Brookside star had died “very suddenly” in University College Hospital (UCH). Margoyles called her “one of the angels in our business”.

Diamond’s screen acting career began in 1958, when she appeared in an episode of the British anthology series Armchair Theatre.

Over the next five decades, she appeared in the 1960s TV shows Jackanory, The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, and Sherlock Holmes, in which Douglas Wilmer played the eponymous detective.

Margolyes struck up a close bond with Diamond after they met in 1968 at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. “I loved her from then on,” the actor said.

In the 1970s, Diamond starred in 12 episodes of Tightrope, which featured future Coronation Street actor John Savident (Fred Elliott), and in 1992, Diamond was cast as the teacher Mrs Shackleton in Channel 4 soap Brookside. She also voiced Galadriel in a radio adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

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Diamond made just two TV appearances in the 2000s – starring in five episodes of cult sitcom The Armando Iannucci Shows and an episode of BBC soap Doctors.

Margolyes hailed Diamond as “endlessly generous, interested in others and thrilled by their success”, adding: “She was beautiful, gentle, full of fun, wise and perceptive.”

She wrote on Facebook: “Alas, on my mind is the sudden death last Monday, of my dear friend, Marian Diamond, at UCH in London, aged 89.

"I feel utterly bereft: a unique spirit has been taken very suddenly away from us. Her late sister, the casting director, Gillian Diamond and her close friend, the actor Hugh Dickson, both died in 2018. Gillian’s sons survive her.

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"I hope they will share with her friends the funeral details. She deserves a full house. Marian, you’re held in my heart forever."

In 2025, Margolyes, who is renowned for her witty retorts and humorous commentary, hit out at reports alleging that she is at “death’s door” and reassured fans that she is “very much alive”.