COUNTRY OF BIRTH

England

INDUSTRY

Entertaiment

TOP ACHIEVEMENTS

Dame Judi Dench is an Academy Award-winning British actress, known for her many and varied stage, television, and film roles, in a six-decade career.

EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

Judith Olivia Dench was born on December 9, 1934, in North Yorkshire, England. Her father was resident doctor at the Theatre Royal in York and her mother was its wardrobe mistress. Dench attended the Mount School in York, before going to London to study at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, graduating with the Gold Medal as Outstanding Student.

EARLY CAREER

Dench's natural talent and versatility fast-tracked her to success. In 1957, she received critical acclaim for her stage debut as Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet with the Old Vic Production Company at the Royal Court. Dench continued to work with the Old Vic for another four years.

ACHIEVEMENTS

In 1961, Dench moved to the Royal Shakespeare Company, for a 30-year residence that saw her take on every leading female Shakespeare role. Her performance as Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (1977) earned her the first of her eight Laurence Olivier Awards. In the 1960s, while continuing her stage work, Dench also took on roles in television and film. She gained international recognition as M, James Bond's boss, in GoldenEye (1995). She was the first woman to take this role. Dench played M in another six Bond films until she was killed off in Skyfall (2012). Dench has portrayed two British Queens - Queen Victoria in the biopic Mrs. Brown (1997), and Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love (1998), for which she won the Best Supporting Actress Award despite being on-screen for just 8 minutes. Her other Oscar-nominated roles were in Mrs. Brown (1997), Chocolat (2000), Iris (2001), Mrs. Henderson Presents (2005), Notes on a Scandal (2006), and Philomena (2013). Other memorable films include A Room with a View (1985), A Handful of Dust (1988), Pride and Prejudice (2005), Nine (2009), and Clint Eastwood’s biopic J. Edgar (2011).

RECOGNITION

Few other actors have been recognized as much as Dench has over her 60-year career. Among her major awards are an Academy Award, a Tony, 11 BAFTAs, eight Laurence Olivier Awards, two Golden Globes, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. She has won 55 competitive awards from 203 nominations. Dench was created Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1970 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1988.

ADDITIONAL FACTS

• By the late 1990s, Dench was the patron of over 180 charities, many of which were related either to the theater or to medical and social causes. She is Patron of the British Shakespeare Association and Advisor to the American Shakespeare Center.
• Dench’s memoir And Furthermore was published in 2010.
• In 2012, she announced that she suffered from macular degeneration.
• In May 2020, Dench became the oldest person to be featured on the cover of British Vogue.
• Dench married actor Michael Williams in 1971. The couple remained together until Michael's death from cancer in 2001.