The Forsytes Susan Hampshire: 'I'm hoping I'm not going to hang along for too much longer'
The Forsytes' Susan Hampshire worries that she and the rest of her age group are taking up space and oxygen that should be for the younger generation.
Susan Hampshire hopes she will not live for much longer.
The 89-year-old actress thinks she and the rest of her age group are snatching space and oxygen that should be for younger generations.
Susan told the Daily Mail newspaper's Eden Confidential column: "I'm hoping I'm not going to hang along for too much longer, that's all I can say.
"Unfortunately, my age group are hanging about too much and we're taking the oxygen from the young.
"We need to move off. We've had our day in the sun, and we need to leave space for the young. I think we live in an overcrowded world and that makes it very difficult."
She added: "'Well, a lot of us may not be that wise. We just might think we're wise, but we might be talking a lot of rubbish."
The Forsyte Saga legend is content being single following the death of her second husband Sir Eddie Kulukundis, who lost his 14-year battle with Alzheimer's in 2021 at the age of 88.
Susan - who was married to the entrepreneur for 40 years - said: "I have never even thought about remarrying. He only died five years ago, and I enjoy every minute of his memory. He was so sweet and he was very kind."
Although the entertainer - who has 56-year-old son, film producer Christopher Granier-Deferre, with her late first husband, director Pierre Granier-Deferre - is not keen on having a long life, she will keep working if the right project comes along.
Susan said: "I mean, if something comes along and I'm offered it, then that's a nice surprise.
"But obviously most people think I'm dead."
In January, the Monarch of the Glen alum said she would rather end her own life than go through the trauma her late siblings Ann and Jane endured during their final days.
Her eldest sister Jane starved herself to death aged 94 in September 2020, following a fall, and Ann had rheumatoid arthritis, whose condition declined, also following a fall at age 94, and she died two years to the day after Jane passed away.
Susan - who was one of several celebrities that backed 50-year-old Labour MP Kim Leadbeater's bill to legalise assisted dying - is quoted by the Daily Mail as saying: "My sisters, who both pleaded with me to help them die, spent their final weeks in terrible pain, wasting away until they became shells of themselves.
"That we, in this country, have no kinder alternative to ease people on their way is, I think, incredibly cruel.
"When a loved one is writhing in agony, begging for help and has only a few weeks to live, why can't we show compassion and give them something to end their suffering?
"We're kinder to animals at the end than we are to humans, and yet we all know that we must die. When we're ready for it and can't bear another minute of suffering, we should be allowed to go."
In a submission to the House of Commons health select committee at the time, she wrote: "I have witnessed, hour by hour and week by week, my loved ones' wishes for a dignified end being denied.
"That trauma will never leave me."
