Dame Judi Dench DBE
Movie Star Winner of Oscars, Golden Globes and many other Awards
Only a few talented individuals have made the step up from being a good actor to being a great actor, and Dame Judi Dench is one of those few.
Dame Judi Dench is the only movie star to be nominated for an Oscar six times, proving that although she's over sixty, she certainly is not over the hill! Judith Olivia Dench, known as Judi, was born in December 1934 in York, England. Dench, an exuberant child with a quirky sense of humour, loved art and the theatre.
She attended The Mount School, a Quaker school where individuals were encouraged to develop the things they liked best, in Dench's case art and dancing. As a child she had hoped to become a ballerina. The Mount discouraged the pranks and boisterous playfulness of pupils like Dench. They preferred quiet, subdued behaviour, something that was probably rather difficult for the exuberant Miss Dench.
The Mount was renowned for its theatre productions. Author Margaret Drabble, three years Dench's junior and a pupil at the school, recalls Dench's Ariel in The Tempest. "She had a gift for verse-speaking already at school: she had a natural ear. When she came on-stage she just lit up for the audience."
Dench then spent a year studying design at art school, but soon decided that acting would be a better choice. She does not like showing off her talents and was amazed to be offered a place at London's Central School of Speech and Drama.
Dench has always been known for her zany sense of humour and her crackly voice. The late Peter Woodthorpe, best known for supplying the voice of Gollum in the 1978 film The Lord of the Rings, once said: "I can't forget her voice – I never thought she'd succeed because of her voice: she always sounded as if she had laryngitis."
Despite the voice Dench has been named as one of the UK's finest Shakespearian actresses and has played almost every leading female role. Early on in her career Dench took some small roles in films but her film career really took off in 1995 when she played spy chief 'M' opposite Pierce Brosnan in the Bond movie Goldeneye. She took special delight in accusing the macho James Bond of being a 'sexist, misogynist dinosaur'. and has subsequently played M in four more Bond movies.
Dench won a Golden Globe for her role in the television production The Last of the Blonde Bombshells. She has also appeared in a long list of highly successful movies, including Tea with Mussolini, Mrs Henderson Presents, Mrs Brown, Shakespeare in Love (as Queen Elizabeth I), Chocolat and, most recently, Notes on a Scandal. She has won almost all of the entertainment industry's prestigious awards as well as being named Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 1988.
Despite her fame, Dame Judi is still a devout Quaker, a sensitive and private person, eschewing intrusive publicity and fiercely protective of her private life. She is one of Britain's best-loved actresses and adored by cinemagoers the world over.
Source:
- Judi Dench with a Crack in her Voice, biography by John Miller (Orion Books Ltd. 2002)
