Dench - And Furthermore

Unless otherwise credited, all pictures belong to Judi Dench. While every effort has been made to contact copyright holders, if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be happy to acknowledge them in future editions.

Text Illustrations

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I DO NOT CONSIDER THIS an autobiography. I have neither the time nor the skill to write one, and John Miller has covered much of my life in his 1998 biography, the seventieth birthday book from my friends which he edited, and the illustrated Scenes from my Life we assembled together.

So when Ion Trewin approached me about this new volume I hesitated for a long while. Eventually he persuaded me that told in my own voice, filling gaps and remembering much that John Miller did not know or did not include in his biography, was more than sufficient justification for a new and updated account.

I said that I supposed in that case we might entitle it And Furthermore , as a follow-up to those earlier books. I hasten to add that this is also not the final word, since I have often expressed the wish to emulate my dear friends and mentors, John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft, both of whom continued working right to the end.

I have enjoyed and am still enjoying a wonderful life, and made some friendships I cherish deeply, many of which appear in these pages, and that is one of the most important reasons why I am happy to put all this on the record.

19341957

I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE THAT it is more than half a century since I first stepped on to the stage of the Old Vic Theatre, and into a way of life that has brought me the most rewarding professional relationships and friendships. I cannot imagine now ever doing anything else with my life except acting, but it was not something that I actually planned when I was growing up. That may seem strange, as my whole family was deeply involved in theatre in one way or another.

My father was a doctor in general practice, but spent much of his spare time acting with the Settlement Players, a very good amateur group in York. He and my mother were keen theatre-goers, so my elder brothers and I were taken to the theatre from a very early age. When I saw the celebrated farce Cuckoo in the Nest by Ben Travers, I laughed so much when a man jumped up in a laundry basket at the end of a bed wearing those combinations they called longjohns, that I thought I would have some kind of fit. In fact I think my mother must have decided that I really was going to have a fit, because I was taken home at the interval, and only brought back the next night to see the second half of the play. We went to Peter Pan at Leeds, and when we came home I said, Couldnt we fix some wires up in the waiting room, and I could come flying in from the consulting room to the waiting room? My parents must have been in despair.

Daddy was a fine actor, and a marvellous after-dinner speaker; with a great sense of timing. He had the ease of an Irishman in telling stories, and he had a brilliant sense of humour. He was actually born in Dorset, but brought up in Dublin, and only moved to York after he married. He was so very grounded as a doctor. I used to go visiting patients with him, and as he turned into roads the children used to come and hold on to the car. He became really very popular as a GP, and we hardly ever saw him at any meals, because he was always out delivering babies. People still come up to me and say, You wont believe this, but your father delivered me as a baby. I always try to look surprised.

Mummy also acted occasionally, but more often was responsible for the costumes. Once they went to a party with Daddy as Shakespeare and Mummy as Elizabeth I, and she made the most incredible dress for the Queen. They were also in a film about Dick Turpins ride to York, and I still have the picture of the two of them on the stairs at home. A man called Wilson, who taught me to ride, was in the film with them, and he left us a box of costumes from it, with various bodices and skirts.

Mummy could whip up anything, and after I had seen the Laurence Olivier film of Henry V I longed to go to a fancy-dress party as the Princess of France, so she made me the most beautiful dress, with cotton-wool all round the sleeve marked like ermine. I made the headdress that I had seen Rene Asherson wearing, with a piece of netting round my head and a ruler through the top. It looked absolutely terrific. (It never crossed my mind that one day I would play that part onstage.) Over the years there were all sorts of things that had just got put in the ottoman, which we were always digging through; I just thought that all families got dressed up like that.

When the Settlement Players did Christopher Frys The Firstborn I played Tuesret, the pharaohs daughter. Christopher became a great friend years later, and I rather regret that is the only time I have ever acted in one of his plays. When I was at Clifton Preparatory School we did a Nativity Play and I was told I was to play a fairy, which I was quite cross about, because I knew the Nativity story did not involve fairies. I also played a snail once, and Alice in Alice in Wonderland .

My brothers, Peter and Jeffery, who were quite a bit older than me, appeared in school productions at St Peters in York, which is one of the oldest schools in the country. In Shaws Caesar and Cleopatra Peter played Caesar and Jeff was Cleopatra. I saw Jeff as Kate in The Taming of the Shrew and Cassius in Julius Caesar , and Peter as Duncan in Macbeth . I thought it was very racy to spin round on the piano stool at home and say, What bloody man is that? That was all I remembered of the play, but I did say that rather a lot.

Because of the age-gap between us I was of course sent to bed much earlier than the boys, and I remember so well going to bed and hearing them playing cricket in the garden, and hearing all that life going on outside; I simply couldnt bear it, and it is still like that. I dont like missing anything, even today I hate to be in bed and hear people talking downstairs, because I am far too nosy, I have to know what they are on about.

Our house was in an area called York Without, because it was outside the city walls. We had a long straight strip of garden, with a few apple trees. We couldnt grow very much, apart from some lovely lilies-of-the-valley and a few roses, and we used to rake the pears off the tree next door. At the end of the garden was an old barn, and owls used to live in there. When the boys had friends round playing cricket they were always knocking the ball over into Miss Lazenbys garden, and she would never give the ball back, however much we asked for it. One day Jeff found a rat in the barn, and they did it all up and gave it to me to take it round and push through her door. Daddy heard about it, and told us all off.

My first school, Miss Meabys, was just up the road from my brothers school, St Peters, so when I finished for the day I used to go and sit on the wall to watch the boys playing games, waiting for my mother to come and take us home.