Dame Judi Dench is 90 today!
Born and bred in the U.K., Dame Judi is considered one of the best actresses to come out of her country, as she has forged a career that spans six decades. The actress got her start in the theater in the late ’50s and expanded to film and television in the decades that followed. An Oscar, Golden Globe, Tony and BAFTA award-winner, there isn’t a part that Dench hasn’t brought her heart, regalness and poise to.
As we celebrate the acclaimed star’s 90th birthday, take a look at her incredible life in photos, below.
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Judi Dench’s Early Years
Judith Olivia Dench was born on Dec. 9, 1934, in Heworth, York in the United Kingdom. The youngest of three, she had two older brothers named Peter and Jeffery.
Love for the arts came naturally for Judi as both her parents were involved with York Theatre Royale and while she acted in some of the productions, she was actually trained as a set designer.
Things changed, however, when her brother Jeff began attending the Central School for Speech and Drama and Judi followed suit. She’s seen here in a photo commemorating her first stage role, in 1957
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Judi Dench Heads to the Theater
Dench made her professional debut with the Old Vic Company in 1957. Above, she is pictured during dress rehearsals for Hamlet — one of the many roles she would star in while there.
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Judi Dench Joins the Royal Shakespeare Company
She would go on to join the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1961 and made her debut portraying Anya in Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. She also played the part of Isabella in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure.
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Judi Dench in Action
The actress was photographed in action as Hermione in The Winter’s Tale at The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 1969.
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Judi Dench Transitions to Television
Though she remained a major player in the theatre space, Judi also dabbled in television acting. She snagged her first role playing the lead in an adaptation of Hilda Lessway in 1959 and then played the young Estella in Great Expectations.
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Judi Dench Becomes a Mother
Dame Judi married her late husband Michael Williams in 1971. The couple would welcome their only child, daughter Finty, in 1972.
Judi and Williams were together for 30 years until his death from lung cancer in 2001.
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Judi Dench Makes a Major Move to TV
In 1989, Dench scored the role of Bridget Mayor in the acclaimed television drama Behaving Badly.
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Judi Dench Takes On The Movies
With a strong career in theatre and television under her belt, it was only natural that Dench would go to the big screen. The actress got her first starring role playing Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown.
And despite her enormously successful film career, she said at the beginning, she was told it would never happen: “[A director I auditioned for] was perfectly nice. But at the end he said, ‘You’ll never make a film. You have the wrong face,’ And I said that is fine, I don’t like film anyway. I want to go back to the theatre.”
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The Name’s Dench. Judi Dench.
She also became the the first woman to play James Bond’s boss, M, in the 007 franchise, in The World Is Not Enough with Pierce Brosnan.
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Judi Dench’s Honors
Judi Dench became a Dame of the British Empire in 1988, and was further honored by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005 with a Companion of Honour insignia, a special award granted to those who have made a major contribution to the arts, science, medicine, or government lasting over a long period of time,” according to the Royals’ website.
Just don’t call her a national treasure! “It’s a terrible label. So dusty, so dreary,” she said several years ago. “It relegates me to being an 86-year-old woman. Whereas in my mind’s eye I’m 6-ft. and willowy and about 39.”
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Judi Dench Wins All the Awards
With a career as robust as hers, it’s no surprise Dame Judi has amassed tons of awards. She’s been nominated for eight Academy Awards since 1997, winning one in 1998 for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (famously for a performance in which she was only onscreen for five minutes).
She has ten BAFTAs across film and TV. She’s also a two-time Golden Globe winner, a Tony Award winner and has gleaned a record-breaking eight Olivier awards.
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Judi Dench Finds Love Again
In 2010, Dench met her partner David Mills, a conservationist, after she visited his wildlife center and he spotted her from his office.
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Judi Dench Steps Back from Acting
As a result of the macular degeneration she’s been experiencing for more than a decade, Judi Dench told Graham Norton on his show that it’s become nearly impossible to act anymore, primarily because she relies on a physical script to memorize her lines.
“Because I have a photographic memory, I need to find a machine that not only teaches me my lines but also tells me where they appear on the page,” the Oscar winner said. “I used to find it very easy to learn lines and remember them. I could do the whole of Twelfth Night right now … I have to learn through repetition, and I just hope that people won’t notice too much if all the lines are completely hopeless!”
Source: People
