Oscar Profile #585: Judi Dench Revisited

Born December 9, 1934 in Yorkshire, England, to a physician who was also general practitioner for a local theatre and his wife, the wardrobe mistress, Judith Olivia (Judi) Dench grew up to become one of her country’s greatest actresses.

Although she intended to become a set designer, she followed her brother Jeff into acting school where she graduated at the top of a class that included Vanessa Redgrave. Drawn to the theatre, she excelled in Shakespearean roles, notably Ophelia in Hamlet; Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. To her astonishment she won rave reviews for her Sally Bowles in the 1968 London production of Cabaret even though she insisted she couldn’t really sing. She married actor Michael Williams in 1971 and had her only child, a daughter, in 1972.

Much on British TV in starring roles from 1959, Dench made her film debut in a bit part in 1964’s The Third Secret. Back to the theatre and TV, she was a hit in TV series A Fine Romance (1981-1984) opposite her husband Michael Williams who died in 2001.

Small but interesting roles in such films as A Room With a View, 84 Charing Cross Road, and A Handful of Dust brought her some notice, but it was the TV series As Time Goes By which began in 1992 and ran for over ten years that brought her lasting fame in the U.S., followed by her introduction as M in the 1995 James Bond movie, Goldeneye. Still, it wasn’t until 1997’s Mrs. Brown that she became a bona fide film star, earning numerous awards including her first Oscar nomination at the age of 63.

Dench holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for any performer over the age of 60. She has been nominated seven times to date for Mrs. Brown, Shakespeare in Love (for which she won), Chocolat, Iris, Mrs. Henderson Presents, Notes on a Scandal, and Plilomena.

Other notable big screen appearances include those in Tea with Mussolini, The Shipping News, Ladies in Lavender, Pride and Prejudice, Nine, My week with Marilyn, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Skyfall, Victoria & Abdul, Murder on the Orient Express, Blithe Spirit, and Belfast for which she is again in the conversation for an Oscar nomination.

Made a Dame of the British Empire in 1988, Judi Dench is still going strong at 87.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

MRS. BROWN (1997), directed by John Madden

After a life in the theatre, on TV, and the odd role in films here and there, Dench became a bona fide movie star with this film at the age of 63 earning the first of her seven Oscar nominations to date. Her portrayal of the deeply depressed Queen Victoria brought out of her mourning for Prince Albert by servant John Brown, won her numerous awards including her 7th BAFTA, her third in film albeit her first for a leading role as well as her first Golden Globe. She again played the character in 2017’s Victoria & Abdul for which she was nominated for Best Actress by the Screen Actors Guild, but not by Oscar.

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998), directed by John Madden

Dench’s eight-minute cameo as Elizabeth I is the second shortest Oscar winning performance ever given by an actress. She won the same year another actress (Cate Blanchett) was nominated in the lead actress category for playing the same character. Only Beatruce Straight’s Oscar winning performance in Network is shorter. The film, which won another six Oscars including a surprise win for Best Picture, was the first comedy to win since 1977’s Annie Hall. It starred the year’s Best Actress winner Gwyneth Paltrow and Jospeh Fiennes.

NOTES ON A SCANDAL (2006), directed by Richard Eyre

Dench received her sixth Oscar nomination, her fourth for Best Actress, for her brilliant portrayal of a bitter, cynical and lonely schoolteacher who latches onto a vulnerable younger teacher whose affair with a fifteen- year-old student sets the stage for blackmail. Dench and Cate Blanchett, who also received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her equally brilliant portrayal of the younger teacher, create indelible screen portraits. Unfortunately for Dench, she was up against Helen Mirren’s unstoppable awards magnet as Elizabeth II in The Queen.

PHILOMENA (2013), directed by Stephen Frears

Dench had one of her most memorable roles as the real-life Irish woman who was forced to give up her illegitimate child by the nuns in the convent in which found shelter as a young mother. More than fifty years later, after having married and raised a family, Dench’s Philomena Lee engages an investigative reporter in the search for her missing son. Her journey takes her to America where she learns her son was a closeted gay Republican of some distinction in the George H.W. Bush White House. Further investigation reveals that he died of AIDS, and at his request, is buried in the graveyard of the convent from which he was taken.

BELFAST (2021), directed by Kenneth Branagh

Ten-year-old Jude Hill has the lead as thinly disguised version of the young Branagh in this semi-autobiographical drama of the director’s boyhood in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during troubled times when violence between Catholics and Protestants was at its fiercest. Young Hill, as well as Caitriona Balfe as his mother, Jamie Dornan as his father, Ciarin Hinds as his grandfather, and Dench as his grandmother, give commanding performances in this film told from the child’s point of view. Dench’s role is the smallest of the five, but it is superbly rendered, especially in the film’s final scene.