LINE of Duty star Anna Maxwell Martin’s film director husband Roger Michell died from a heart attack, a new report has revealed.
The Notting Hill filmmaker died in September 2021 – on the same day he wrapped the sound mix on his final project: Elizabeth: A Portrait in Parts.
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The Mail has now reported that Michell’s cause of death was a heart attack due to a left coronary atheroma – a fatty deposit inside the artery.
The death was certified by the Senior Coroner for Hertfordshire, Geoffrey Sullivan, though an inquest was not held.
Michell previously suffered a heart attack in 1999, which prevented him from directing Nicolas Cage’s romance Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.
Speaking during a recent interview on Woman’s Hour, Maxwell Martin, 47, explained how she navigated the grieving process.
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She said: “My husband died three years ago.
“Things were really difficult in every aspect of our lives. There’s lots of stuff that comes with grief, and one of those was financial terror.
“Then there are real practicalities around your children, and their mental health and supporting them, which is your priority.”
Anna and Roger split in 2020 after being married for 16 years and sharing two daughters Maggie, 15, and Nancy, 13.
They remained on good terms and had been planning to spend Christmas together before Michell’s death.
The pair, who had a 22-year age gap, first met on the set of Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love.
Michell, who won a Bafta in 1995 for his BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, had two grown-up children – Rosanna and Harry – from a previous marriage to Kate Buffery.
Anna continued: “Looking back I was probably in a heightened state of shock and fear for a long time until very recently.
“I’ve travelled this road of grief and sudden traumatic death before. I’ve done it before. 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 and pretty strong, and I think I’m quite deft. I thought, I’ve just got to keep the motor chugging on.”
The actress then added that she’d previously experienced grief at the age of 24, which she described as ‘isolating’.
She added: “I was very isolated because no one I knew had been through it. Then when it happened with Rog, I saw it more as, we’ve got to keep it together for the kids.
“It’s something about being a woman in your 40s and by then, if you’re lucky enough you would have succeeded in having the best friends and best people around you.
“You’ll have stopped making mistakes in that area of your life and I really did. I had exceptional friends and an exceptional support network.”
Back in a 2022 interview with The Guardian, Anna described her split from Michell as “devastating”.
She then said of his death: “When Roger died, I lost one of my best friends. I see it as that.”
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