Julie Walters The Great Dame
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ|April 2020
Dame Julie Walters kept her cancer diagnosis quiet, because she didn’t want to make a fuss. Now, Emma Clifton finds the famously mischievous 70-year-old is wondering if this latest movie will be her last, as she looks back on her most memorable roles and talks about loving the anonymity of life on her organic sheep farm.
Emma Clifton
Julie Walters The Great Dame
To be a member of the audience of Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre Company, in the mid-1970s, would be to have had a sneak peek at some of acting’s greats as they cut their dramatic teeth. Bill Nighy, the charming star of films like Love Actually and About Time, starred alongside Pete Postlethwaite, the high-cheekboned star of In The Name of the Father. And then there was Julie Walters, in her early 20s, who had left a career as a nurse to study drama and English at university, after an old boyfriend told her she had some acting potential. She has gone on to become one of England’s most beloved actors, and her career is in its fifth decade, which is impressive when you consider she started it on a whim. In the past two years, Julie has beaten stage three bowel cancer, become a Dame and turned 70, and she has approached all three of these life milestones with the same trademark resolute spirit.It was only once she completed all her treatment for cancer that she publicly revealed what she had been going through, not wanting to cause any fuss at the time. When she missed the premiere for Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again in 2018, her agent told people it was because she slipped and ruptured a hernia – an excuse that was so very unglamorous, there was never any reason to think it might not be true. But in reality, she was staring down one of her biggest battles yet.

It was during the filming of her latest movie The Secret Garden (due for release here this year), that she got the diagnosis. In 2018, she had been suffering some “slight discomfort” and indigestion and had seen her doctor, before returning months later with stomach pain, heartburn and vomiting. After being referred to a gastric surgeon, she was told they had found an abnormality in her intestine.

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PRETTY WOMAN
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

PRETTY WOMAN

Dial up the joy with a mood-boosting self-care session done in the privacy of your own home. It’s a blissful way to banish the winter blues.

time-read
3 mins  |
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Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Hitting a nerve

Regulating the vagus nerve with its links to depression, anxiety, arthritis and diabetes could aid physical and mental wellbeing.

time-read
5 mins  |
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Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

The unseen Rovals

Candid, behind the scenes and neverbefore-seen images of the royal family have been released for a new exhibition.

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2 mins  |
July 2024
Great read
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Great read

In novels and life - there's power in the words left unsaid.

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2 mins  |
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Winter dinner winners
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Winter dinner winners

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3 mins  |
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Winter baking with apples and pears
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Winter baking with apples and pears

Celebrate the season of apples and pears with these sweet bakes that will keep the cold weather blues away.

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7 mins  |
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The wines and lines mums
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

The wines and lines mums

Once only associated with glamorous A-listers, cocaine is now prevalent with the soccer-mum set - as likely to be imbibed at a school fundraiser as a nightclub. The Weekly looks inside this illegal, addictive, rising trend.

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10+ mins  |
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Former ballerina'sBATTLE with BODY IMAGE
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

Former ballerina'sBATTLE with BODY IMAGE

Auckland author Sacha Jones reveals how dancing led her to develop an eating disorder and why she's now on a mission to educate other women.

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7 mins  |
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MEET RUSSIA'S BRAVEST WOMEN
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

MEET RUSSIA'S BRAVEST WOMEN

When Alexei Navalny died in a brutal Arctic prison, Vladimir Putin thought he had triumphed over his most formidable opponent. Until three courageous women - Alexei's mother, wife and daughter - took up his fight for freedom.

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8 mins  |
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IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO START
Australian Women’s Weekly NZ

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO START

Responsible for keeping the likes of Jane Fonda and Jamie Lee Curtis in shape, Malin Svensson is on a mission to motivate those in midlife to move more.

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5 mins  |
July 2024