Patronising? High and mighty? Haughty? Not Dame Judi Dench, who despite the dizzy heights she has achieved as an actress, both here and across the Atlantic, still has her feet firmly on the ground.
Outside, a Siberian wind is slicing like a knife through the litter-strewn streets of a rundown area of London's East End. Inside the cavernous, crate-filled warehouse where she has taken refuge, however, Dame Judi Dench is basking in the warmth of a heavy overcoat and the good wishes of colleagues who are queuing up to wish her a very happy 65th birthday. "How sweet, thank you, you shouldn't have," she says for the umpteenth time, as another member of the film crew pesents a card and a bouquet of flowers. The first lady of British acting sees nothing odd in spending her landmark day here, shooting scenes for Alan Plater's The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, a film headlining this autumn's TV schedules, co-produced by the BBC and American company HBO Films. In fact, the suggestion that she should be sipping champagne somewhere grander is greeted with a schoolmistressy smile. "It's nice to celebrate among friends," she scolds. "This was a film I've waited a long time to make. I'm having wonderful fun."
For more than 40 years, Judi Dench has epitomised the theatrical trouper who -- come hell or high water -- is on set on time and on cue, every working day of a production. It would, in truth, have been totally out of character for this most down-to-earth of dames to have taken a day off. With her career at its zenith, putting her feet up could not be further from Dame Judi's mind. These are exciting times, and she relishes all they have to offer.
It was her performance as Queen Victoria in 1997's Mrs. Brown that earned her a trip to Los Angeles the following year for the Oscars, where she was nominated for best actress. A year later, she went one better than nomination, winning best supporting actress for her scene-stealing portrayal of Elizabeth I in the award-laden Shakespeare in Love. She accepted the award with a mixture of modesty, dignity and school-girlish delight. "I had a wonderful time star-spotting," she giggles, reminiscing. "I get silly if I meet anyone famous in the flesh. It's appalling." Within months of securing her Oscar, she won a Tony award for best actress for her record-breaking run in David Hare's play Amy's View on Broadway.
Cradling a styrofoam cuppa on the set of Blonde Bombshells, she admits that, predicatbly, success has heightened her profile. "As one would expect, I have been getting more scripts offered to me, from both here and America, which is lovely," she says. In the States, she is now familiar to the public. She relates a friend's account of overhearing two women in a New York street. "Apparently one said, 'Judi Dench isn't just a film actress, you know,' I thought that was brilliant!"
Being famous in the States has also provided the more surreal take on celebrity. In Los Angeles a reporter asked her, "Do you realise you are the first member of the royal family to win an Oscar?" Dame Judi smiles tolerently. This ... change in her career has not altered her as a person -- although playwright David Hare has said of her, "Under the famous charm there is an extraordinary steel."
This steeliness was forged growing up in a close-knit family in Yorkshire. Her family have always rooted for her. When she played Juliet in Romeo and Juliet at the Old Vic in 1960, the line "Where are my father and mother, nurse?" drew an instant response from her father. "We're in row H, darling!" he yelled proudly.
At secondary school, the Mount School in York, she discovered the Quaker religion and has kept to its tenets ever since, describing her beliefs as "essential". That inner strength proved invaluable when she entered London's Central School of Drama in the mid-1950s. Given her star quality, she graduated as an obvious choice for leading roles, but initially, some critics questioned her lack of conventional beauty for playing dramatic heroines. When she got her first big break on stage, playing Ophelia in Hamlet in 1957, one critic sniped that she "tripped over her advance publicity and fell flat on her pretty face". At her first screen test shortly afterwards, she was told she had "every single thing wrong with her face".
Dame Judi is not one for dwelling on the past. "I don't like looking back because it's like, 'Well, that's it then.' I don't want it to be 'it' quite yet," she says. "But I still remember those remarks. I've been called square, dumpy, round, puckish-looking. If you said that to an ordinary person, somebody would smack you in the mouth. In my mind's eye, I'm six-foot tall and slender as a willow, and I'll go through life like that," she laughs. "But those comments never worried me. I just loved the job, the company and the badinage."
Her early treatment also taught her a sense of balance. "There has to be a part of you that can laugh, or you'd go mad," she smiles. "That's not to say I don't care passionately about the business and the people in it, because I do. But I think a sense of the ridiculousness of it all is healthy."
The interview is regularly interrupted by calls for her to return to the windswept street for another scene. Each time this happens there is a discernible look of relief on her face. A few years ago she vowed never to give another interview, such is her dislike of talking in depth about herself. "Our job is to tell a story. It has nothing to do with discussing our ideas or saying, 'I'm feeling as sick as a parrot'", she said at the time. "If you give too much of yourself away, there's nothing left. You become an empty person, burned-out inside."
Dame Judi has had more reason than usual to avoid the spotlight in recent times. The close-knit nature of the family she grew up in has been replicated in her own domestic life. She has been married to actor Michael Williams for 29 years and has appeared with him regularly on stage and screen, most notably in their hit ITV sitcom A Fine Romance (she recently starred with Geoffrey Palmer in another series of the hit BBC sitcom, As Time Goes By). The secret of her marital happiness, she once said, was "not taking each other for granted". It's reported that every Friday since they married, Williams has given his wife a red rose.
They share their north London home with their 26-year-old daughter Finty, also an actress, and her son Sam. Dench was delighted -- if a little startled -- to become a doting grandparent three years ago. Their daughter had been secretive about both the pregnancy and the father's identity, and in keeping with the family's dignified reticence, this is still not a matter for public discussion. "We were surprised by it," Dame Judi confessed once. "It's changed our lives and is so wonderful!"
Family life was thrown into disarray for a less joyful reason last summer when, after a bout of pleurisy, Michael Williams was diagnosed with lung cancer. Approaching the end of her run in Amy's View when she heard the news, Dame Judi pulled out of the play and headed home. Since then, the family has closed ranks and she has not said anything publicly about her husband's illness.
Her confession that she took her foot off the accelerator for the first time in years is as revealing as she is willing to be. "I did ease off when I came back from New York. I returned in July and I didn't work until October," she says. More than a year later, Williams himself has hinted that he is responding well to treatment. The fact that both he and his wife have returned to their punishing schedules is the most positive sign of all.
Dame Judi's most recent screen role, in The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, teamed her with Sir Ian Holm and a stellar cast of senior actresses, from Dame Cleo Lainie and June Whitfield, to Billie Whitelaw, Olympia Dukakis and Leslie Caron. Dame Judi plays Elizabeth, a spirited housewife who refuses to retreat into weeping widowhood and sets off in search of her old band, The Blonde Bombshells. "I was sent Alan's script and instantly wanted to do it. Ian was the same. For two years we've tried to get it done. They are all wondeful characters and it's a great story. It's just a cracking part for a lot of women," she enthuses.
This film also passed the acid test she applies when choosing her roles these days. "I want to be a person you can't pigeonhole," she says. "I like to do anything new and challenging. I get bored very easily, so I want to play parts unlike those I've played before. I want to learn. I want to be pushed. I want someone to say, 'Go on, try that, fall 3,000 feet and see how you feel when you get up.'"
The greatest challenge in this production lay in mastering the initially unwieldy saxophone. After a few sessions with her tutor Cathy Stobart, however, Dame Judi was besotted with the instrument. "Cathy's marvellous. The first thing she taught me was how to put it together. There's suddenly a lovely moment when it seems a part of you, like an extension of your arm," she says. "I am now at the stage where I know the fingering and can play a scale on it."
The saxophone has since become something of a passion in her living room. "I have got it with me at home and I do pick it up and play," she smiles. "I would like to go on playing it -- I'm mad for it."
Moments later she is told that her day's work is over and she is free to head home. The cards and flowers are loaded into the car as she says her farewells and repeats her effusive thanks for all the gifts she has received. "Have a good night," calls a crew member.
"Thanks," she replies with a mischievous smile. "But I'm afraid putting my feet up is my idea of a celebration these days."
Her departure is low-key, not the stately leave-taking so often associated with attention-seeking stars. Even the car is an ordinary saloon she is sharing with others who are being dropped off en route. The Dame remains down-to-earth to the last.
Thanks to Jan M for sending this article which appeared in the October, 2000 issue of Sainsbury's Magazine in the UK (and thanks to her friend, Penny, for sending it to her.)