Before she died, actor Helen McCrory repeatedly urged her teenage children to be brave and not sad about her death, said her husband, Damian Lewis.
In a moving tribute to the Peaky Blinders star, Lewis said, “She left our beautiful children, Manon and Gully, too soon, but they are prepared for life.”
Lewis wrote in the Sunday Times: “She urged us to be courageous and not afraid. As she repeatedly said to the kids, “Don’t be sad because even though I’m about to sniff it, I’ve lived the life I wanted.” ”
McCrory, who was also known for her roles in the films The Queen, The Special Relationship and the Harry Potter franchise, died of cancer on Friday at the age of 52. She vowed to keep her friends a secret about the disease while she was being treated, according to Carrie Cracknell, who directed McCrory in a 2014 production of Medea.
Lewis, an actor himself, acknowledged that keeping her condition private had caused a “torrent of grief and shock.”
He noted that the grief for McCrory had not been overshadowed by Prince Philip’s funeral. “On a weekend when the newspapers will rightly pay their respects to the Duke of Edinburgh, thousands of others around the world have reminded me of m’Duchess, my little one, on her own royalty.”
Lewis said he wanted to focus on his wife’s professional and personal accomplishments. Helen was an even more brilliant person than an actress, he said, describing her as a “meteor in our lives.”
Lewis wrote, “For many, her nickname was Dame Helen (apologies, Dame Helen), and while we’ll never know now if that would have materialized, I think we secretly do.”
Lewis said McCrory was “immensely proud of being an artist, an actress.” He said she was most proud of her work on stage. McCrory had said “making theater is what made my heart sing,” Lewis recalls.
Sam Mendes, who directed McCrory in an acclaimed production of Uncle Vanya, praised her “explosive energy” on stage. Mendes wrote in The Guardian saying that he had asked McCrory to play the part of Sonya, but she had other ideas.
She told me she should play Yelena – the other young female role – and went on for the next hour to tell me exactly why. She left the room with the part. This has never happened to me before or since… She was clearly half way through to doing a great job, I just had to get out of the way and let her finish the job. Which, of course, she did – with the utmost genius. “
Lewis recalled actor Lauren Bacall falsely praising her for performing Sonya, played by Emily Watson, after a show of the production in New York. When Bacall apologized for the mistake, McCrory said, “That’s all right Ms. Hepburn, I’m glad you enjoyed the show.” Lewis added, “Lauren Bacall threw her head back and laughed and roared. “You’re my kind of lady, let’s go out.” And there they went into the night. “
Lewis said his wife had spoken about his future relationships with women in the weeks before her death, saying that “love is not possessive.”
‘She said to us from her bed,’ I want daddy to have girlfriends, a lot of them, you all need to love again, love is not possessive, but you know, Damian, at least try to get through the funeral without anyone to hug, ‘”he said.