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Dame Judi, we salute you!
The inestimable Judi Dench, circa 1968.
Day 4: Judi Dench
What am I supposed to say about Judi Dench? What hasn’t yet been said about her in all the spaces.
I’ve been mesmerised by her since I was in high school. She’s about my parents’ ages, and for some reason I get a little frisson thinking of her in that perspective.
She’s beautiful—been beautiful for years, and she holds herself impeccably and then cracks up with absolute sincerity. She’s a charming interview host, a flexible and gracious actress, and when she’s holding the sort of sincerity that she is in this picture—I think of an interview about 10 years ago when she explained that she went into acting because she was shy—because she could hide herself in other people’s characters for so long…but junkets were really messing with that, because she didn’t think she was worth talking about.
Hey, you know what Judi ( Little Judi Dench. Such a clever, little Judi Dench. Little, clever, chubby Judi Dench…thanks Ian McKellen for that eternal earworm)? You’re doing pretty damned well right now. Just keep doing exactly that.
I’d like to do another theme week or seven from time to time. Anything anyone wants to see that falls within my wheelhouse?
Gorgeous and badass. Dames Helen Mirren and Judi Dench.
Judi Dench as Ophelia at a dress rehearsal of Michael Benthall’s production of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ at the Old Vic, London. (September 15, 1957)
Judi Dench as Cleopatra in William Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’
Royal National Theatre, London 1987
Photograph by Graham Brandon
Dame Judi Dench
The Importance of Being Earnest
Judi Dench is one of my favorite actresses. She was so funny in this movie! I love her.
Reese Witherspoon was super cute too!
As I mentioned in an earlier post, there’s going to be a documentary on BBC2 about Rolf Harris painting a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The scene he paints is the one where Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, falls in love with the donkey-headed clown, Bottom. Here’s that very moment in the play from a 1968 production, featuring Dame Judi Dench as Titania. You’ll not fail to notice that Dame Judi looks very fetching in a costume made of just a few strategically-placed leaves. Until I saw this, I’d had no inkling that Dame Judi was quite so attractive in her younger days.
She made an amazing Titania.
