Overview
- Producer Malcolm Prince writes that O'Grady turned down an implantable defibrillator months before his death to avoid recuperation, not let colleagues down, and avoid the risk of a device firing on stage.
- A text to his daughter Sharyn, quoted in the memoir, shows him rejecting the cardiologist’s recommendation for a “defib.”
- Associates say the device could have been life‑saving, though the reporting offers no independent medical confirmation of that claim.
- Friends recall he spoke about having limited time, reviewed his will on the day he died, and had recently spent a week at William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent.
- The memoir, serialized by the Daily and Sunday Mirror with Sharyn’s blessing and due from HarperCollins on 6 November, also describes possible disordered eating tied to his Lily Savage era and visible frailty during filming and before Annie rehearsals.