Judi Dench

Dame Judith Olivia Dench was born on 9 December 1934 in the Heworth area of York, England, to Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset who served on the Western Front during the First World War, and Eleanora Olave Jones, who was born in Dublin. Both parents met while studying at Trinity College Dublin. Dench attended the Mount School, a Quaker independent secondary school in York, and became a Quaker. She had two elder brothers, Peter Dench, a doctor who lived from 1925 to 2017, and Jeffery Dench, an actor who lived from 1928 to 2014. Her niece, Emma Dench, is a historian of ancient Rome. In October 2021, a BBC One episode of Who Do You Think You Are? revealed that Dench is descended from the Danish aristocratic Bille family, including Claus Bille (1490–1558), a grandfather of astronomer Tycho Brahe.

Theatre was a constant presence in Dench's upbringing. Her father served as the general practitioner for York Theatre Royal, while her mother worked there as wardrobe mistress, and actors frequently stayed in the family home. On a non-professional basis, Dench participated in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in 1951, 1954, and 1957, playing the Virgin Mary in the third. Though she initially trained as a set designer, she was drawn toward acting after watching Peggy Ashcroft perform as Cleopatra, an experience she later described as having changed her life. She applied to the Central School of Speech and Drama, then based at the Royal Albert Hall in London, where her classmates included Vanessa Redgrave. She graduated with four acting prizes, among them the Gold Medal as Outstanding Student.

Dench made her first professional stage appearance in September 1957 with the Old Vic Company at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool, playing Ophelia in Hamlet. She subsequently made her London debut in the same production at the Old Vic and remained with the company for four seasons, from 1957 to 1961. Her Broadway debut came in 1958, when she played Katherine in Henry V, a production directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli that also marked her New York City debut. She returned to the role of Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in 1960, also directed by Zeffirelli. During this period she toured the United States and Canada and performed in Yugoslavia and at the Edinburgh Festival. In December 1961 she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, 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 worked in repertory 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.

Dench's television career began in 1960 with an appearance in The Four Just Men. In 1964 she played Valentine Wannop in a Theatre 625 adaptation of Parade's End and also appeared in an episode of the police series Z-Cars. That same year she made her film debut in The Third Secret, followed by a small role in A Study in Terror (1965). She returned to Theatre 625 in 1966, playing Terry in the four-part series Talking to a Stranger, for which she won a BAFTA for Best Actress. The 1966 BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles was awarded to her for her performance in Four in the Morning.

In 1968, Dench took on the role of Sally Bowles in the musical Cabaret at the Palace Theatre, despite having no prior musical theatre experience and initially believing the offer was a joke. Following that run, she rejoined the RSC and spent nearly two decades performing with the company in Stratford and London, accumulating multiple best actress awards. Among her RSC roles was the Duchess in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi in 1971. Her television profile grew substantially through starring roles in the romantic comedy series A Fine Romance, which ran on ITV from 1981 to 1984, and As Time Goes By, which ran on BBC1 from 1992 to 2005.

Her international film profile expanded considerably when she was cast as M in GoldenEye in 1995, a role she continued to play across eight James Bond films, with her final cameo appearance in Spectre in 2015. A supporting role in James Ivory's A Room with a View in 1985 had preceded this period of wider recognition. Dench received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998) and received seven additional Academy Award nominations for Mrs Brown (1997), Chocolat (2000), Iris (2001), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005), Notes on a Scandal (2006), Philomena (2013), and Belfast (2021). Her accolades across a career spanning seven decades include a Tony Award, two Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Television Awards, six BAFTAs, seven Olivier Awards, the BAFTA Fellowship Award, the Society of London Theatre Special Award, and the British Film Institute Fellowship Award.

On Broadway, Dench appeared between 1958 and 2002 in a range of productions that included the play King Henry V, the comedy Twelfth Night, and Into the Woods. Her most celebrated Broadway appearance came in Amy's View, for which she received the 1999 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.