Grave insult! Sex And The City’s Kim hits back at British cousin in row over headstone
KIM CATTRALL yesterday rejected claims that she had robbed her British cousin of her mother’s last resting place by putting up a new gravestone without her consent.
The Sex And The City actress attacked Michelle Cox’s accusation of showing ‘a total lack of respect’, saying she had never heard of the 49-year-old nurse and hadn’t even known she existed until this week.
‘The Cox family are not my family,’ the Liverpool-born actress added, saying that even researchers for BBC genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? hadn’t uncovered a link when she appeared on it.
She spoke out after the Daily Mail revealed her British relative’s anger at discovering the new gravestone on a Christmas Day visit to the family plot where her mother – Miss Cattrall’s aunt – is buried.
Although Miss Cattrall is only 60 and apparently in good health, the stone also bears her name and year of birth above the inscription ‘the Liverpool Cleopatra’, a reference to her much-publicised return to the stage in her home city in 2010 in Shakespeare’s Antony And Cleopatra.
The original headstone at Holy Trinity Church in Wavertree, Liverpool, referred to their grandparents William and Edith Cattrall, Miss Cox’s mother Edna and her older brother David, who died in infancy.
At some point in the past two months and without the knowledge of Miss Cox, it was replaced with one that also includes the name of Miss Cattrall’s father Dennis, who died in 2012 and was Edna’s brother.
Miss Cox, who has a younger sister, Diane, said this week: ‘It doesn’t feel like my mum’s grave any more.’ But yesterday Miss Cattrall wrote on Facebook: ‘None of my British or Canadian family had heard the name Cox before four days ago. Even the programme Who Do You Think You Are didn’t find or know of their existence.’
Miss Cattrall said that when the vicar of Holy Trinity contacted her seven years ago over her father’s wishes to be buried in the Cattrall family plot, there was no known living relative ‘associated’ with it.
‘I am proudly Liverpudlian,’ added the star, whose parents took her to Canada when she was three months old but who returned to the city from 11 to 16 to go to secondary school. ‘It was also my father’s wish I be buried there as well. He was especially proud of me coming home to Liverpool in 2010 to play Cleopatra at the Playhouse. He called me “The Liverpool Cleopatra”.’
Her father died in Canada but she later took his ashes to Liverpool.
Miss Cattrall said she had wanted a new headstone with both his name and hers – ‘when the time comes’ – as ‘I love my Dad and he loved Liverpool as I do’.
Criticising her cousin’s comments, she said: ‘The Cox family are not my family. I have never met them or known of them. My Dad never spoke of his late sister.’
She concluded: ‘Our wish is to see this matter settled swiftly and amicably.’
Miss Cox declined to comment. A source said. ‘All she is concerned about is seeing the original gravestone put back in place.’