Line of Duty and Ludwig star Anna Maxwell Martin spoke movingly this week of how her world was turned upside down when her ex-husband Roger Michell died four years ago.
Now details have emerged of how double BAFTA-winner and Notting Hill director Michell, 65, died – and the aftermath for the family.
His death by heart attack came on the same day in September 2020 that he completed the final sound mix of what would be his final film, the Prime documentary Elizabeth: A Portrait in Parts, which was released posthumously.
According to his death certificate, issued two weeks later, a post-mortem examination showed that Michell died from a) Acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) and b) left coronary atheroma (a fatty deposit build-up on the coronary artery).
The Senior Coroner for Hertfordshire, Geoffrey Sullivan, certified the death, but no inquest was held.
Maxwell Martin said she experienced a sense of ‘financial terror’ with Michell’s sudden passing, more than a year after the couple had announced their separation.
The actress said her immediate priority was to protect their daughters, Maggie, 15, and Nancy, 13, while facing an uncertain financial future.
Anna spoke as her new four-part true crime drama, Until I Kill You, is launched on ITVX on Sunday in which she plays nurse Delia Balmer, who endured a relationship with convicted double murderer John Sweeney.
Anna told BBC’s Women’s Hour: ‘My husband died three years ago and things were really difficult on every aspect of our lives.
‘One of those was that there’s a lot of stuff that comes with grief, and one of them is financial terror. And then there are real practicalities around your children and their mental health, and supporting them, which is your priority.’
The couple first met when Michell directed Martin in the 2004 adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel Enduring Love. She was 26 at the time, while he was 48.
Father-of-four Michell had been living in Hitchin, Hertfordshire and the Register Office was informed by his grown-up son Harry, according to the document. Writer, director and actor Harry and his theatrical agent sister Rosanna were from Michell’s first marriage to actress Kate Buffery.
In an interview published just days before Roger’s death, Anna said the pair were still on good terms and were planning to spend Christmas together.
This week she told Woman’s Hour how it took her a long time to come to terms with his death.
She said, ‘Looking back, I was probably in a state of shock, and fear, and a heightened state, for a long time actually, until very recently…
‘I don’t know anybody who’s been through what my children have been through. So my focus was just on them, and I didn’t really start to grieve for Roger until probably six months ago.’
She compared the experience with the loss of her father Ivan when she was aged just 24.
‘I’ve trod this road before, of grief, and sudden traumatic death. I’ve done it before, and so in a way I could pick myself up and do it again.
‘It was horrible to have to see my children walk that road, but I’m pretty gritty, I’m pretty strong, and I think I’m quite deft, I hope, at navigating life. And I thought, “I’ve just got to keep the motor chugging on”.’
Describing her first experience of loss, she explained: ‘When it happened to me and I was 24, I was very lonely. I was very isolated because no-one had been through what I’d been through. I didn’t know those people.
‘And then when it happened with Rog, I saw it more as, “We’ve all got to keep it together for the kids”.’
She pointed out that as a woman in her 40s she was grateful for ‘having the best friends and best people around’.
She added, ‘You’ll have stopped making mistakes in that area of your life. And I really did, I had exceptional friends, an exceptional support network.’
When Anna announced her split from Michell in 2020 in an interview with the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine, she said: ‘Our marriage has ended and we’ve been separated for quite some time.
‘I haven’t really spoken about it because it isn’t fair on all the people involved.
‘There are four children to think about. It’s taken an enormous amount of time, but we are all getting through it in a healthy way.’
Michell’s best known film was Notting Hill, the romcom written by Richard Curtis and starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant in 1999. The film was a huge commercial success and was nominated for three Golden Globes.
His other films included 2002’s Changing Lanes with Ben Affleck and Samuel L Jackson, Venus, the last film of Peter O’Toole, and two movies with Daniel Craig: The Mother, in 2002, and an adaptation of Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love the following year.
Michell had been in talks to direct Craig in the 2006 James Bond film Quantum of Solace but jumped ship shortly before production, citing concerns over the script.
He also pulled out of directing Captain Corelli’s Mandolin after suffering a heart attack in 1999, shortly after the release of Notting Hill.
