Judi Dench

Born on December 9, 1934, in York (United Kingdom) Judith Olivia Dench, known as ‘Judi’ since childhood, belongs to a humble family of Quakers. She studied at the prestigious Central School of Speech and Drama in the British capital.

Her talent was so overwhelming from the very beginning that at the age of 17 she made her stage debut with the difficult role of Ofelia in “Hamlet”. Since then he has become a guarantee of quality in British theatre, with daily full houses, especially since he starred on the stage in “Romeo and Juliet”, directed by Franco Zeffirelli , eight years before he filmed his famous adaptation. cinematographic. She also made a splash playing Sally Bowles in Cabaret , three years before Liza Minnelli ‘s character made it big on screen.

Although she has always given absolute priority to the stage, she succeeded on television with her first job, as the protagonist of Hilda Lessways , followed by various series, such as A Fine Romance , where she shared the screen with Michael Williams , the man of her life, whom she married in 1971. She made her film debut in 1964 with The Third Secret , by Charles Crichton , but this medium continued to be very secondary for her for a long time, although she had prominent appearances, in the Sherlock Holmes film Horror Study , as secondary with Vanessa Redgrave in Un pasado en sombras , in the role of endearing wife ofAnthony Hopkins in The Final Letter , or as a writer who betrays her friend in A Room with a View .

He began to consider the possibilities of the seventh art more seriously, after directing Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson in a stage version of “Much Ado About Nothing”. Branagh cast her as the innkeeper Nell Quickly in his debut film, Henry V (1989) , an adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, which also featured Thompson. She reprized her command in Hamlet (1996) , where she briefly played Queen Hecuba.

Pierce Brosnan himself , when he was going to become James Bond for the first time, had the idea that the boss of the agent with a license to kill could be replaced by a woman. Brosnan himself suggested the name Dench, because of her experienced lady image, with authority. He debuted in the saga with GoldenEye , and since then he has repeated in Tomorrow Never Dies , The World Is Never Enough , Die Another Day , and even outlived Brosnan himself by appearing in 007 Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace , where he had been replaced. by Daniel Craig .

At the same time, Dench established himself among moviegoers with Her Majesty Mrs. Brown , where he did a brilliant job as Queen Victoria of England, who after becoming a widow regained her will to live thanks to one of her assistants. For her work he received an Oscar nomination. Shortly after, the person in charge of the film, John Madden, called on her again to play another English sovereign, Elizabeth I, in Shakespeare in Love , with whom she finally won the Academy Award, despite the fact that she only appeared eight minutes on screen. “After being Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth, she will soon give life to another queen in the cinema: George Michael,” she had said in one of her jokes About her Whoopi Goldberg , before the actress went after the award her.

Voters for these awards love Dench, having subsequently received four other nominations, for her work as an estranged elderly woman with her daughter who befriends Juliette Binoche, in Chocolat , her incarnation of the writer Iris Murdoch in her later years (as a young man she embodied her Kate Winslet ), in Iris (2001) , his widow turned risqué show businesswoman, in Mrs. Henderson Presents , and the teacher who supports her classmate (accused of having had relations with a student) in Diary of a Scandal .

In recent years, Dench has tried to make up for lost time in the cinema, developing an intense activity. He appeared in widely disparate titles, such as The Chronicles of Riddick , The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) , Pride and Prejudice , the musical Nine , Last Spring , Jane Eyre , My Week with Marilyn , The Exotic Marigold Hotel , or Skyfall . She especially demonstrated her talent in J. Edgar , as a repressive woman, mother of the protagonist.

Queen Elizabeth II decided in 1988 to grant her the title of Dame of the British Empire. In 2001, Michael Williams, her husband, with whom she had a daughter, passed away.

At the end of February 2012, the actress wanted to put an end to the widespread rumors that she was going to go blind due to an illness. To do this, she released a statement in which she acknowledged that she suffered from macular degeneration due to her age. “This type of disease affects thousands and thousands of people around the world who have to deal with it. It’s something I have to learn to deal with and to which I have to adapt, but it doesn’t mean blindness,” the actress said. that although he has to resort to other people to read the scripts to him, he assures that he does not plan to retire.