The Iron Lady: Family of Margaret Thatcher reject film premiere invitation

BARONESS Thatcher’s family declined an invitation to last night’s European premiere of The Iron Lady, the biopic starring Meryl Streep.

The decision of the former prime minister’s family to turn their backs on the star-studded occasion was revealed by the director, Phyllida Lloyd, who said the Thatchers had been the first names on the guest list.

But Lady Thatcher’s children, Carol and Mark, did not take up the offer, despite much of the film being based on an autobiography written by the former Conservative leader’s daughter.

The director said half the film had been “pure imagination” inspired by Carol Thatcher’s memoirs, A Swim-On Part in the Goldfish Bowl.

Lloyd said: “We did make contact with the family some time ago to tell them what we were trying to do, but they perhaps quite understandably have sort of stepped back from the whole thing.

“They were the first people we invited to see the finished film. They didn’t take up our offer and I can quite understand them not wanting to see it in the public gaze, so we are not actually sure whether they have seen it or not.”

The Iron Lady has attracted some criticism for its depiction of Lady Thatcher’s battle with dementia, with those who know her well arguing that it did not do justice to the powerful figure she once was.

Lloyd added: “I think most people who see the film will feel that Meryl’s performance of the older Margaret really does take care of her dignity, and we all felt that somehow the portrait of somebody who is experiencing a failure of strength and health and forgetfulness is not a shameful thing to put on the screen.”

The director described Mrs Thatcher’s rise to No 10 and her fall from high office as a story about “power, and what it might have felt like to have great power and then to lose all power”.

Streep attended the premiere at the BFI on London’s South Bank, saying she wanted to show the “human being” behind the former prime minister.

The actress said: “I consider all the roles I play a privilege, but this one was special because there are such vehement opinions about her.

“People seemed to look at her as an icon or a monster, and I just wanted to locate the human being inside those caricatures that we’ve seen over so many years. And to investigate myself what it must have been like for her.”

There is concern among some Tory grandees that the film dwells too much on Mrs Thatcher’s twilight years.

Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, who served in the Thatcher government, said: “The only criticism that I have heard is that much of the focus is on her declining years, and that’s a bit unfair. But the difficulty with that criticism is that Carol Thatcher has made a big play of her illness.”

Former Cabinet minister Lord Tebbit of Chingford has written that she was “never, in my experience, the half-hysterical, over-emotional, over-acting woman portrayed” by Streep.

Another Scottish Tory peer, Lord Sanderson of Bowden, said that for the film to be accurate, there ought to be some recognition of the many kindnesses that she had shown.

He said: “Everyone thought she was incredibly tough, but if there was something private that was troubling you, then she was incredibly kind and sympathetic.

“It is not so well understood that she was a very human person – quite remarkable, really.”

Streep, tipped for an Oscar nomination for the role, said of a potential place on the shortlist: “It would be great, because the secret of the nomination is that it comes from the actors and actors who are the ones who know what you go through.”