August 17th 2023.
Dame Harriet Walter has been a star of stage and screen for decades, having appeared in The Crown, Killing Eve, and Ted Lasso. In 2011, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to drama.
However, more than a decade later, Harriet has revealed that her title can be a bit of a nuisance. She explained that her title isn't recognisable on most websites when she is trying to make payments or a booking. She said, “It's on one of my bank cards but not the other. But also it causes all sorts of nightmares on most websites because they have a drop-down menu saying, ‘What's your title?’ and they practically never have dame on there.”
The 72-year-old actress also shared her workaround for this issue. She said, “Sometimes I go, OK, if I want people to know I'm a dame, it'll say first name, and I'll put Dame Harriet. And then you go to the airport and they say, ‘You're not here’. I'll say, ‘Look under D’.”
Dame Harriet had initially planned to snub the late Queen Elizabeth’s offer of a damehood, but eventually decided to accept it as a ‘feminist’ move. She clarified, “My first reaction was, ‘I'm going to be really right on and turn it down’. I thought, ‘I'm an egalitarian and I don't believe in inequality.’ And then I thought, ‘You know what? All the guys in my profession, when they get to a certain age, they get offered a knighthood and part of it is because they've had the access to the roles that will keep them in the profession for decades’.”
Despite the minor annoyances, Dame Harriet shared that she was happy that she accepted the title. She joked, “So my egalitarian credentials went down the tubes and my feminist credentials dominated.”
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