Judi Dench

Dame Judith Olivia Dench CH DBE FRSA (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Regarded as one of Britain's best actresses, she is noted for her versatile work in various films and television programmes encompassing several genres, as well as for her numerous roles on the stage. Dench has garnered various accolades throughout a career spanning over six decades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, two Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Television Awards, six British Academy Film Awards and seven Olivier Awards.

Early Life
Judith Olivia Dench was born in the Heworth area of York on 9 December 1934, the daughter of an Irish mother and English father. Her mother, Eleanora Olive (née Jones) (1897–1983), was born in Dublin; her father, Reginald Arthur Dench MC & Bar (1897–1964), was a doctor from Dorset who grew up primarily in Dublin and who fought on the Western Front in World War I. Her parents met while studying at Wesley College.

Dench attended the Mount School, a Quaker independent secondary school in York, and became a Quaker. She had two elder brothers named Peter (1925–2017) and Jeffery (1928–2014), the latter of whom also became an actor. She is a cousin of Greek-Australian actors Rebekah Elmaloglou and Sebastian Elmaloglou. Her niece, Emma Dench, is a historian of ancient Rome. In October 2021 Dench was the subject of BBC One's Who Do You Think You Are?, where it was revealed that she is descended from the Bille family of Danish aristocrats, and Steen Andersen Bille (1624–1698), the illegitimate son of Anders Steensen Bille (da) (1578–1633), as well as Claus Bille (1490–1558), a grandfather of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601).

Biography
Dench made her first professional stage appearance in September 1957 with the Old Vic Company at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool, as Ophelia in Hamlet. According to the reviewer for London Evening Standard, Dench had "talent which will be shown to better advantage when she acquires some technique to go with it". Dench then made 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 City debut) and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in 1960, both directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli. During this period, Dench 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 the Playhouse in Nottingham from January 1963 (including a West African tour as Lady Macbeth for the British Council), and with the Playhouse Company in Oxford from April 1964.

After a long run in Cabaret, Dench rejoined the RSC, making numerous appearances with the company in Stratford and London for nearly twenty years, 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." 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 Placetheatre 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", wrote Michael Billington in The Guardian. "It will astonish me if the performance is matched by any in this actress's generation", commented J. C. Trewin in The Lady. The production transferred to London, opening at the Donmar Warehouse in September 1977, and was adapted for television, later released on VHS and DVD. Dench won the SWET.

From 1981 to 1984, Dench starred in Britain's BAFTA award-winning A Fine Romance with her husband Michael Williams. In 1987, Dench played a supporting role in Columbia Pictures film 84 Charing Cross Road, with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. The film dramatizes a delightful and tender correspondence, of the same title, between American writer, Helene Hanff and British bookshop manager, Frank Doel, which began after WWII, in 1949, and ended in 1969. She also acted with the National Theatre in London where she played Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1987). In 1989, she appeared in David Tucker's Behaving Badly for Channel 4, based on Catherine Heath's novel of the same name. That same year, she was cast as Pru Forrest, the long-time silent wife of Tom Forrest, in the BBC soap opera The Archers on its 10,000th edition.

Personal Life
Dench married actor Michael Williams in 1971; they remained together until his death from lung cancer in 2001. Their only child, daughter Finty Williams, was born in 1972 and became an actress. Through her daughter, Dench has a grandson who was born in 1997.

Dench has been in a relationship with David Mills, a conservationist, since 2010. In a 2014 interview with The Times magazine, she discussed how she never expected to find love again after her husband's death and said, "I wasn't even prepared to be ready for it. It was very, very gradual and grown up. It's just wonderful." The couple met when Mills invited her to open a squirrel enclosure at the wildlife centre he runs near her home in Surrey.

In early 2012, Dench discussed her macular degeneration, with one eye "dry" and the other "wet", for which she has been treated with injections into the eye. She said that she needs someone to read scripts to her. However, she also discovered she has photographic memory when she was able to recite Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. She also underwent knee surgery in 2013, but recovered from the procedure well and stated that her knee was no longer an issue.

She became president of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London in 2006, taking over from Sir John Mills. She has been president of Questors Theatre, Ealing, since 1985, where the main auditorium is known as The Judi Dench Playhouse, being the only theatre to bear her name. She was also patron of Ovingdean Hall School, a special day and boarding school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Brighton, which closed in 2010, and Vice President of The Little Foundation. Dame Judi is also a long-standing and active Vice President of the national disabled people's charity Revitalise.

Animated Films

 * Doogal (2006) - Narrator (US Dub)