Judi Dench Bio

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Judi Dench Biography

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Judi Dench Pictures

Society Special Award
2004

Best Cast - Motion Picture
1998 Shakespeare in Love
Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
2000 Chocolat Best Actress in a Play
1999 Amy's View

Dame Judith Olivia Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA, (born December 9, 1934), usually known as Dame Judi Dench, is an Academy Award-, Golden Globe-, Tony-, nine BAFTA-, and six-time Laurence Olivier Award-winning English actress.

Judi Dench: Personal life

Dench was born in York, North Yorkshire, the daughter of Eleanora Olave (née Jones), a native of Dublin, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor who met Dench's mother while studying medicine at Trinity College. Dench was raised a Quaker and lived in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester. Notable relatives include actor Jeffrey Dench, her older brother, and her niece Emma Dench, a Roman historian previously at Birkbeck, University of London, and currently at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

When Dench was 13, she entered The Mount School, York. In 1971, Dench married British actor Michael Williams and they had their only child, Tara Cressida Williams (aka "Finty Williams"), on September 24, 1972, who has followed the family's theatrical tradition to become an accomplished actress in her own right.

Dench and her husband went on to star together in several stage productions, as well as separately, but then paired again to make television history with Bob Larby's hit British sitcom, A Fine Romance (1981-84).

Michael Williams died in 2001, aged 65.

Judi Dench: Public life

In Britain, Dench has developed a reputation as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, primarily through her work in theatre, which has been her main forte throughout her career. She has more than once been named number one in polls for Britain's best actress.

Dench was awarded the OBE in 1970, became a Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1988, and a Companion of Honour in 2005. She gained worldwide popular fame after taking over the role of M in the James Bond film series in 1995, and subsequently through many acclaimed film appearances. In 2000-2001 she received an Honorary DLitt from Durham University.

Dench is a patron of The Leaveners, Friends School Saffron Walden and the Archway Theatre, Horley, UK. She became president of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London in 2006, taking over from Sir John Mills, and is also president of the Questors Theatre. In May 2006, she became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Judi Dench: Career

Judi Dench - 20 Century

Before starting her professional career Judi Dench trained for the stage at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, and was involved in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in the 1950s. Most famously, she played the role of the Virgin Mary in the 1957 production, performed on a fixed stage in the Museum Gardens.

In September 1957 she made her first professional stage appearance with the Old Vic Company, at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, as Ophelia in Hamlet, then her London debut in the same production at the Old Vic. She remained a member of the company for four seasons, 1957-1961, her roles including Katherine in Henry V in 1958 (which was also her New York debut) and as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in October 1960, directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli. During this period she toured the United States and Canada, and appeared in Yugoslavia and at the Edinburgh Festival.

She joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in December 1961 playing Anya in The Cherry Orchard at the Aldwych Theatre in London, and made her Stratford-upon-Avon debut in April 1962 as Isabella in Measure for Measure. She subsequently spent seasons in repertory both with Nottingham Playhouse from January 1963 (including a West African tour as Lady Macbeth for the British Council), and with the Oxford Playhouse Company from April 1964.

In 1968 she was offered the role of Sally Bowles in the musical Cabaret. As Sheridan Morley later reported: "At first she thought they were joking. She had never done a musical and she has an unusual croaky voice which sounds as if she has a permanent cold. So frightened was she of singing in public that she auditioned from the wings, leaving the pianists alone on stage". But when it opened at the Palace Theatre in February 1968, Frank Marcus, reviewing for Plays and Players, commented that: "She sings well. The title song in particular is projected with great feeling."

After a long run in Cabaret she rejoined the RSC making numerous appearances with the company in Stratford and London over the next two decades, winning several best actress awards. Among her roles with the RSC, she was the Duchess in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi in 1971. In the Stratford 1976 season, and then at the Aldwych in 1977, she gave two comedy performances, first in Trevor Nunn's musical staging of The Comedy of Errors as Adriana, then partnered with Donald Sinden as Beatrice and Benedick in John Barton's "British Raj" revival of Much Ado About Nothing. As Bernard Levin wrote in the Sunday Times: "...demonstrating once more that she is a comic actress of consummate skill, perhaps the very best we have."

But one of her most notable achievements with the RSC was her performance as Lady Macbeth in 1976. Nunn's acclaimed production of Macbeth was first staged with a minimalist design at The Other Place theatre in Stratford. Its small round stage focused attention on the psychological dynamics of the characters, and both Ian McKellen in the title role, and Dench, received exceptionally favourable notices. "If this is not great acting I don't know what is.": Michael Billington, The Guardian. "It will astonish me if the performance is matched by any in this actress's generation.": J C Trewin, The Lady. The production transferred to London, opening at the Donmar Warehouse in September 1977, was filmed for television, and later released on VHS and finally DVD. She won the SWET Best Actress Award in 1977.

She enjoyed a romantic pairing with Jeremy Irons in 1978, in the BBC television film Langrishe, Go Down, with a screenplay by Harold Pinter, directed by David Jones, in which she played one of three spinster sisters living in a fading Irish mansion in the Waterford countryside.

Dench made her directing debut in 1988 with the Renaissance Theatre Company's touring season, Renaissance Shakespeare on the Road, co-produced with the Birmingham Rep, and ending with a three month repertory programme at the Phoenix Theatre in London. Dench's contribution was a staging of Much Ado About Nothing, set in the Napoleonic era, which starred Kenneth Branagh and Samantha Bond as Benedick and Beatrice. In the same season, Geraldine McEwan and Derek Jacobi also made their directorial debuts.

She has made numerous appearances in the West End including the role of Miss Trant in the 1974 musical version of The Good Companions at Her Majesty's Theatre. In 1981, Dench was due to play the title role of Grizabella in the original production of Cats, but was forced to pull out due to a torn achilles tendon, leaving Elaine Paige to play the role. She has acted with the National Theatre in London where, in September 1995, she played Desiree Armfeldt in a major revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, for which she won an Olivier Award.

In 1995 she became known to an international audience after taking over the role of 'M' (James Bond's boss) with the James Bond franchise, starting with GoldenEye. She is one of the few actors from Pierce Brosnan's Bond films to remain in the rebooted franchise. She was in 2006's Casino Royale, and has been confirmed to be continuing the role in Quantum of Solace, which is scheduled to be released in November of 2008.

She has won multiple awards for performances on the London stage, including a record six Laurence Olivier Awards. She also won the Tony award for her 1999 Broadway performance in the role of Esme Allen in David Hare's Amy's View. Alongside her numerous award winning performances, she has also managed to take on the role of Director for a number of stage productions. Dench won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as Elizabeth I in the film Shakespeare in Love.

Judi Dench has frequently appeared with her close friend Geoffrey Palmer, in the series As Time Goes By and in the films Mrs. Brown and Tomorrow Never Dies, both filmed in 1997. Judi Dench has also lent her incredible voice to many animated characters, narrations, and various other voice work. She plays the role of "Miss Lilly" in the children's animated series Angelina Ballerina (alongside her daughter, Finty Williams, as the voice of Angelina), as Mrs. Calloway in the Disney animated film Home on the Range, she has narrated various classical music recordings (notably Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Britten's Canticles-The Heart of the Matter), numerous BBC radio broadcasts, as well as commercials. Her many television appearances include lead roles in the series A Fine Romance and As Time Goes By.

Judi Dench - 21 century

Dench remains one of the biggest draws on the London stage. She is often compared and contrasted with Dame Maggie Smith, another British actress of the same generation, with whom she has appeared in several movies, including the 2004 Ladies in Lavender, and on stage in David Hare's two-role play Breath of Life (Haymarket, October 2002). Dench returned to the West End stage in April 2006 in Hay Fever alongside Peter Bowles, Belinda Lang and Kim Medcalf.

She finished off a busy 2006 with the role of Mistress Quickly in the RSC's new musical The Merry Wives, a version of The Merry Wives of Windsor. at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Dench's more recent film career has been extremely successful. She successfully garnered six Academy Award nominations in nine years for Mrs Brown in 1997; her Oscar-winning turn as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love in 1998; for Chocolat in 2000; for the lead role of writer Iris Murdoch in Iris in 2001 (with Kate Winslet playing her as a younger woman); for Mrs Henderson Presents (a romanticised history of the Windmill Theatre) in 2005; and for 2006's Notes on a Scandal, a film for which she received critical acclaim, including Golden Globe, Academy Award, BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild nominations.

Dench at the Mrs Henderson Presents premiere

In 2007 the BBC issued The Judi Dench Collection, DVDs of eight television dramas: Talking to a Stranger quartet (1966), Keep an Eye on Amélie (1973), The Cherry Orchard (1981), Going Gently (1981), Ghosts (with Kenneth Branagh and Michael Gambon, 1987), Make and Break (with Robert Hardy, 1987), Can You Hear Me Thinking? (co-starring with her husband, Michael Williams, 1990) and Absolute Hell (1991).

Dench, as Miss Matty Jenkins, co-stars with Eileen Atkins, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton and Francesca Annis, in the BBC One five-part series Cranford. The series began transmission in the UK in November 2007, and on the BBC's US producing partner station WGBH (PBS Boston) in spring 2008.

Dench narrates the updated Walt Disney World Epcot attraction Spaceship Earth.

She will return to the West End from 13 March - May 23, 2009 in Madame De Sade.

In February 2008, she was named as the first official patron of the York Youth Mysteries 2008, a project to allow young people to explore the York Mystery Plays through dance, film-making and circus. This will culminate on 21st June with a day of city centre performances in York.

She is currently also working on the 22nd Bond adventure Quantum Of Solace and is reprising her role as M.