Judi Dench is a British actress, famous for portraying many Shakespeare’s female characters on T.V, and for being in some James Bond’s films. Her net worth is $35 million. Judith Olivia Dench was born in Heworth, England on December 9th, 1934 within a family of Quaker religion. Her mother is originally from Dublin.
Beginnings
For her parents, Dench had her first contact with the theater. Her father was a physicist, and the head doctor at the York Theater, and her mother was its wardrobe maid. Some of the actors even stayed at home. During this time, Judi became involved in the theatrical subject by participating in three local non-professional mystery productions during the 1950s. In 1957, she excelled her role as the Virgin Mary in a local work in the Gardens of York Museum. Although she initially prepared as a stage designer, she developed interest in dramatic art when her brother Jeff attended the Central School of Speech and Drama.
She applied and was admitted to the school, then located in the current Royal Albert Hall. She was Vanessa Redgrave’s classmate, and she graduated with a diploma awarded in drama, with four distinctions for her acting, one of them a medal as an “exceptional student”.
Professional debut.
In September 1957, she made her professional debut on the stage at the Old Vic as Ophelia in Hamlet. She remained in that theater for four seasons, between 1957 and 1961. She played roles such as Katherine in Henry V in 1958, a work carried out in New York that marked her debut in America, and was directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
She toured Canada, the United States and Yugoslavia, performing in various venues and at the Edinburgh Festival. She joined Shakespeare’s Royal Theater Company in December 1961, and there she played Anya in The Cherry Garden, and in April 1962, she debuted at Stratford-upon-Avon as Isabella in Measure by Measure.
Between 1963 and 1964, she shared credits in the theater companies of Nottingham Playhouse and Oxford Playhouse, in works like Macbeth that took her on tour in West Africa in promotion of the British Council. In 1964, she made her film debut with the dramatic film The Third Secret.
Prominence.
In 1966, she received a special BAFTA Award as “Promise of the Cinema” for her participation in the film Four in the Morning, followed by a second BAFTA as Best Television Actress in the series Talking to a Stranger.
International recognition.
After the release of the film License to kill in 1989, belonging to the action James Bond’s saga, the producers decided to renew the prolonged franchise. Judi was hired to play M, succeeding Robert Brown and becoming the first woman to play Agent Bond’s boss. This role was largely based on Stella Remington, director of MI5.
Her first film in the new millennium was Chocolat, starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. It would follow Iris of 2001 where she interpreted the novelist Iris Murdoch in her oldness, a role that shared with Kate Winslet who interpreted her in her youth. The film gave them both an Oscar nomination, the fourth for Judi in five years.
