Simply Alex Kingston

Currently starring as an irascible tabloid newspaper editor in the ITV comedy Douglas is Cancelled, and former star of the global smash hit medical drama ER, British actress Alex Kingston talks candidly about the most challenging – and rewarding – role of her life….as a carer.

Born in Epsom in 1963 Alex Kingston joined the Royal Shakespeare Company after three years at RADA. She made her big screen breakthrough in 1989’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, followed seven years later by her starring role as Moll Flanders opposite Daniel Craig. In 1997 she relocated to LA to play Doctor Elizabeth Corday in the globally successful medical drama ER, where she stayed for 14 years. Twice divorced – from Ralph Fiennes and Florian Haertel, with whom she shared 23-year-old daughter Salome – she married third husband Jonathan Stamp in 2015.

 

You’ve just finished performing in The Other Boleyn Girl at the Chichester Theatre. How did that go?

It was actually a very intense time as my father died during the middle of the run so I had to just park the grief and get on with the play. By the time the play finished, I was pretty burnt out actually so right now I’m just starting to let go and feel a bit more like myself again.

Suspending your emotions like that must have been incredibly difficult.

It’s just kind of what you have to do. I managed it literally, by having to just put those emotions into a box and know that I would have to deal with them later.

Because the character I was playing was so hard-nosed I think that in a funny sort of way it enabled me to do that. If I was playing a character, or going on a more emotionally raw journey in a play, that would have been more of a struggle.

 

Your mother also passed away only three years ago so did that initial loss make your secondary loss any less traumatic to deal with?

In a funny sort of way, it did prepare me for the loss of my dad. The good thing was that I had been with my mum when she died as my sister was stuck in France during Covid because of the restrictions, but this time my sister was with my dad.

I was in rehearsals, and we knew he didn’t have long but I thought he’d have at least 16 hours and I’d be able to get there in time but he actually went very fast so that was some sort of comfort, before I got there.

And just sitting with my sister and holding his hand and talking to him still and being very conscious and aware that he was somehow still there, his spirit was still in his body and his body wasn’t just a vessel yet, was comforting.

We spent three hours sitting there sharing stories about him and that was important. And then I had to go back into the world of the play but at least I felt like I’d had some sort of communication, some sort of signing off with my dad but actually processing it couldn’t happen until later.

Was your dad’s death unexpected?

My mum died when she was 86 and Dad was a similar age, but we’d been expecting it as he was incredibly frail. He had a stroke when he was about 70 and that aged him about 15 years. When he died, he looked about 109 but it was still a shock. It’s something that I don’t think anyone can actually be prepared for ever.

Some people describe losing their second parent as feeling like becoming an orphan. Do you recognise that emotion?

I do, yes. I can’t speak for everyone because obviously everyone’s relationship with their parents is different, but I think part of the shock when it happens, particularly when it’s the second parent, is that it is finite.

You are absolutely smacked in the face by your own mortality. Your psyche kids you that you’re somehow going to be immortal but when the second parent goes, then it’s just like, ‘That’s it, effectively. I’m next.’ And that is the thing that is quite terrifying, in a way.

Your younger sister was born with a disability and you were involved in her care from day one so did that experience inform how you were able to care for your parents in their final years?

Interestingly my mother, who was born just outside Frankfurt, grew up even as a little girl having to care for her father who contracted Spanish Flu and had meningitis.

So she was raised always being a carer and never expecting help from anyone and when my sister was born and had been deprived of oxygen during the birth, my mum just became the mother to us all but particularly to my younger sister Susie who was essentially a child baby who never grew up.

And throughout that whole process my mother just refused all help from social services on multiple occasions.

Did you and your other sister try to take the pressure off your mother and persuade her to take a break?

When I became a teenager, yes. There were some wonderful respite homes, most of which have been closed now because of government cuts, where my disabled sister would occasionally go for a couple of weeks, so my mum would get a chance to visit her family in Germany, but when the cuts kicked in that respite vanished.

 

Towards the end of her life, did your mum allow you and your sister to care for her?

When she was 82, and still Susie’s full time carer, she was diagnosed with the beginnings of Alzheimer’s, but she hid the diagnosis from us but very abruptly said that she could no longer look after Susie.

We couldn’t understand such an immediate decision, but it was because she didn’t know how quickly the condition would deteriorate so we set about looking for a home for my sister.

And them mum had a stroke, so we had to make a decision on a home for Susie and although it was only temporary at the time she’s still there now and it’s wonderful. It’s a small house in a village not too far from us and there are only four residents, with lots of carers. Susie is super happy there.

And how did your mum’s health issues develop at that point?

She suffered a couple of small strokes during the pandemic, but each time couldn’t return to the family home with my dad as she wasn’t able to look after him, so she moved in with me.

And how special was that period when you had the opportunity to repay all the care that your mother had given you for so many decades?

It was one of the most incredible times of my life. My daughter flew over from New York before all the airlines shut down because of lockdown, so she was with my husband and I too, so it was three generations of us – it was an incredibly special time.

There’s no set pace for Alzheimer’s acceleration. How noticeable was your mum’s deterioration?

When we were looking after her at our house, she was on the attic floor and she started to panic because she didn’t know whether she had taken her medication at the right time, and I sort of found myself labelling all her face creams and writing a big rota on the wall to tell her what to do when.

 

 

In practical terms, how tough was it to deal with your mum’s declining physical capabilities?

I got to the point where we were both getting into the shower naked together and I was washing her and washing her hair.

I think having grown up with my mum being super practical with my sister’s care we’re not afraid of getting down to the real, real human basics and we never have been, which I think some people find hugely embarrassing.

At that point it’s about simply handling bodily functions…

That’s true but some people have been shielded from that but certainly we weren’t. It just became very practical, but we had some amazing days. She started to tell her family things that we didn’t know about, that she had held on to, and felt the urgent need to tell us before she forgot them. She told anybody she could about moments in our shared family history that we had no idea about.

 

And did you care for her until she passed away?

There came a point at which, particularly with her medication, when it was clear that she was not feeling safe in the house with us and she wanted to go into some sort of facility where there were medical professionals who would just make sure that she was being medically cared for appropriately.

 

At that point particularly how challenging did you find the care system to navigate?

It was actually extremely hard because it was still during the pandemic, so we were having to try and find places that would actually even allow us to have a look around. In the end, we found somewhere that was amazing and my father ended up there as well. It was assisted living so that residents initially, if they were still capable, they would have their own small little studio apartment within a bigger complex.

There was a wing adjacent to that complex, which was for people with advanced dementia or Alzheimer’s. My mum started off in her own assisted living apartment, then within a year, she was in the Alzheimer’s wing and I’m pretty certain that’s because from the moment I was born, followed by my sister Nicola and then my sister Susie, my mother never slept a full night again.

Decades of inadequate sleep would impact anyone’s health significantly…

And I think the moment that she let my sister go, to give up caring for her because she had to because of the stroke, I think that it broke her heart and also, I think her body then just kind of went into that sort of freefall, and all of the stress and lack of sleep and everything just was compounded and she went downhill really quite fast after that.

 

Do you think being closer to your parents in their final months taught you lessons about life and death that perhaps you wouldn’t have learnt otherwise?

When I was four-years-old, I became aware that Jesus died, and my mum said, ‘Everybody dies eventually,’ so I replied, ‘If I’m going to die, why was I born?’ and mum couldn’t answer me and I’ve spent my life being terrified of death and holding onto that question.

But the thing that my mum gave me, right at the end, was she showed me how to die in the sense that she allowed me to be with her and support her. And in the same way that she birthed me, it was like the roles were reversed and I was helping her and easing her into death, and whatever that next chapter is.

That’s an incredibly beautiful way to describe death; as a reciprocal cycle…

That’s exactly it. It is a cycle, and in a way, that was her answer, and it took me to be in my 60s to learn that. The only answer she could give me was to show me.

 

---