Even when faced with a life-saving heart operation, Paul O’Grady’s first thought wasn’t for himself - it was for everyone else. His close friend and producer Malcolm Prince has revealed how in the final months of his life, the star refused an implantable defibrillator because he didn’t want to let anyone down.
“He’d signed up to do the musical Annie, he signed up to do the dog show, “ Malcolm tells the Mirror. “He didn’t want to go back into hospital to have another procedure and then spend time recuperating. He wanted to get on and live his life but also work. He didn’t want to let people down.” Ultimately, the device could have saved his life.
Paul, who had a history of heart problems, eventually died from a sudden cardiac arrhythmiaon March 28, 2023. But the TV star had been adamant he didn’t want the medical intervention. A few months earlier, Paul had spent a week in William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent, and the thought of being sidelined again was unbearable.
In a text message to his daughter Sharyn, he wrote: “The cardiologist just wants me to have a defib. But no way am I having one of them. He’s being over cautious and besides, I’m nowhere near as bad as I was.”
Joan Marshrons, his manager and close friend, had explained the procedure to Paul at length. But there was no convincing him. “In the last few years, he worried about his own body letting him down and that was all very depressing for him,” says Joan. “He was scared of losing control and I think that’s why he wouldn’t have the pacemaker because he didn’t want to be on camera or in front of an audience when the thing kicked in … he would have been embarrassed about it all.”
The final few months of Paul’s life are featured in Malcom’s extraordinary new book Paul O’Grady – Not The Same Without You which is being serialized by the Daily and Sunday Mirror. It was written with the blessing of Paul’s daughter Sharynand features candid testimony from his family, as well as Paul’s friends, colleagues, and celebrity friends.
Remarkably, for a man who was so open about many facets of his life, the book sheds fascinating new light on the star, who held a special place in the heart of the public. “It would have been his 70th birthday this year, and I feel ready to tell his story, and I hope I’ve done him justice,” says Malcolm who sat alongside Paul for 14 years on his BBC Radio 2 show.
Often Paul would diffuse the situation around his heart with humour. Malcolm recalls that he joked having a defibrillator would mean he couldn’t walk past an electronic garage door without it opening automatically.
“Quips aside, however, it seems his mind was made up,” Malcolm writes. There were times also when Paul seemed to know his time was limited. Following his hospital visit, Paul’s life-long friend Moira Stewart recalled a conversation in the car on the drive home.
“As we were driving along the lanes back home, he said to me, ‘I’m not going to be here for much longer.’ I asked him what he meant and pushed him to tell me what the doctors had said to him. He was contemplative, I put my arm around him, and he just replied, ‘That’s it. I think I won’t be here for much longer.’” He said something similar to Malcolm during a phone conversation weeks later.
“It’s a conversation I will never forget because he calmly ended our chat with, ‘I won’t make old bones, Malcolm.’”
Even weeks before his death, during a conversation about the death of someone close to Malcolm, Paul was saying about “not knowing what was round the corner.”
“Paul joked about his own age and how he wouldn’t be surprised if his own exit would be ‘sooner rather than later,” Malcolm writes. In their final meeting at Paul’s farmhouse on the day of his death, Paul told Malcolm he was reviewing his will, saying the words just “seemed to just hang in the air.”
The book also explores for the first time how Paul may have had an eating disorder. “Until some of the people I’d spoken to expressed it, I probably hadn’t spotted it…but it makes sense,” Malcolm says.
Incredibly, it may have stemmed from trying to remain slender as his alter-ego Lily Savage. His make-up artist Vanessa White recalls: “I think it all stemmed from his days with Lily, when he was wearing corsets, and he had to be slim.”She adds: “He was a very tricky eater, and on filming trips with him, I would always take a box of Weetabix, just in case, because often he just wouldn’t be able to eat anything.”
Other friends observed similar patterns. Amanda Mealing explains: “Food was a necessity, he didn’t particularly like [having to eat] it.” Moira added: “There was something about food that was tough for him. He told me that his aunty, Chrissie, who was a major influence in his early life, was probably anorexic. And Paul either binged or didn’t eat for days.” One of Paul’s last TV projects was Paul O’Grady’s Great Elephant Adventure, and it was apparent then that his health was suffering. Vanessa remembers that trip vividly.
“Paul was grey, literally grey, and he could barely walk from the aircraft to the lounge, where we had to sit for another six hours, waiting for the connecting flight to Laos. He looked so ill, so ill, and he was so thin,” she said.
TV star friendAlan Carr recalled seeing him not long after, and shortly before he began rehearsals for Annie. “I had seen him recently for dinner and he looked frail and, for once, he looked his age. I mean, his wit was still intact, and he was funny, joking and quick as a whip as always, but I did think he looked a bit fragile… his spark had gone, so I was shocked to hear he was doing Annie,” Alan says. “But it was a calling for him, and I know how much he enjoyed getting out there and entertaining; getting that response from a live audience was his lifeblood.”
But Malcom saw that spark return on their final meeting, with Paul excitedly planning his next projects. “It was terrific to see that. And I sat there thinking, ‘Well, I was wrong….he’s happy doing Annie. I was thinking, wow, he’s got more energy than I have.”
Paul O’Grady – Not the same without you by Malcolm Prince (HarperCollins, £22) is out on 6th November
