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Darling Judi: |
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A new book by John Miller -- Description: The very name encourages a warm and admiring response from the public, whether as an actress admired for her Shakespearean performances or in the contemporary theatre (plays by David Hare, Hugh Whitemore etc), or on TV (the series A FINE ROMANCE and AS TIME GOES BY) or in the cinema (MRS BROWN, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, SHIPPING NEWS, IRIS, and four James Bond films as 'M'). Judi Dench is Britain's favourite actress. Some might make claims for Felicity Kendal or Prunella Scales, but Judi is box-office. When she and Maggie Smith - another favourite - appeared together in a David Hare play last year all seats were sold for the run within 24 hours. John Miller has known her for ten years. His biography of Judi, published originally by W&N in 1999 and a regular reprinter in Orion pb, has now sold 92,000 copies in all editions. For her seventieth birthday we will produce a book of tributes by fellow actors, writers - people of the theatre, film and TV in a volume edited by John Miller. Judi has promised full co-operation, including her photograph albums. The list of those confirmed so far include David Hare, Richard Eyre, Greg Doran, Trevor Nunn, Bill Nighy, Martin Jarvis, Ned Sherrin, Ian Richardson, Michael Pennington, Stanley Wells, Hugh Whitemore, Bob Larbey, Larry Guittard, Tim Pigott-Smith, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Billy Connolly, Benedict Nightingale, Dearbhla Molloy. These will be proper contributions, pieces of up to 5,000 words. Her life has not been all roses, not least the death two years ago of her husband, Michael Williams. The book is not a 'lovie-in'. But it will be a celebration, it will be the must-have Christmas present for her fans. In format we follow books such as those produced for John Gielgud's 80th, Alec Guinness's 70th and Olivier's 80th - beautifully-produced Royal size with 32pp of colour and black and white pix.
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A Special Thank You to Diane P, UK, for scanning and sharing this
Excerpts from the book: Lisa S, UK -- favourite part My favourite quote came from the chapter by Dearbhla Molloy: "It is extremely difficult to write about Judi Dench without sinking into constant hyperbole, difficult to find anything to offer as a counterbalance. There is just one small thing. Visiting the Williams' house in the country without my car, Judi gave me a lift to the railway station. As we moved at a reasonable pace through the winding country lanes, I gradually began to realise that from time to time, rather often really, Jude didn't seem to notice the nearness of an approaching bend, say, or perhaps her position on the road, maybe quite far out from the kerb. There are some people who drive very fast with whom one feels perfectly safe, and others who drive at a moderate speed but induce sweating palms within seconds. Next time I had to go to the station, Michael drove me. On the way, unprompted, he said, 'My wife is a wonderful woman, and I love her dearly but, dear God, she's a terrible driver.' That was a long time ago, she's probably got the hang of it since. But I was quite relieved recently to learn that now she has a driver." Thanks to Lisa S. for sharing this
My pal, Dame Judi BILLY CONNOLLY ONE OF THE nicer things about being tall is that you can measure yourself against the height above sea level of the Maldive Islands which sit, apparently, some way off the coast of Sri Lanka. Personally, I measure exactly six feet in height. This places me in the international scale of well-known types as being taller than Douglas Bader (depending on which leg he is wearing that day), much taller than Albert Einstein, Toulouse-Lautrec, Napoleon and Judi Dench. The delightful thing about towering over Ms Dench is that when you are posing for photographs as John Brown standing with Dame Judi as Queen Victoria, you appear to be an immense agricultural Scottish person whose Queen’s shoulder nestles nearly under his oxter (that’s armpit to anyone who dwells south of North Berwick). Judi Dench, she of the Dame prefix, would seem to be the most popular person in the British Isles and possibly the entire empire since the death of the late Queen Mother. Judi also manages, between bouts of staggering popularity, to be an actor of galactic ability. Her dameship manages the impossible most days where she appears to take on the appearance of a delightful petite woman and a giant of the British theatre who would appear to find situation comedy on television and acting in Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon something of a dawdle (well within her grasp) and brings to both an appearance of familiarity and comfort that quite frankly takes the breath away from mere mortals like me, and anyone else who has had the luck to watch her in full flight. The only reason that I mention her height at all is because the moment that I think about her, or hear her name mentioned, I immediately recall how comfortable she is to hold, or stroll arm in arm with, or, to put it more picturesquely, to stroll shoulder to armpit with. The world’s first completely compact and portable giant. Dame Judi Dench. Our paths crossed in the most delightful of ways. I had been, or rather, was in the middle of making a television series about the history of Scottish art. Towards the end of filming I was standing on the hills above Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh talking to my producer, Douglas Rae, about the day’s work when he mentioned quite casually that he had got hold of the idea for a film about the story of the relationship between Queen Victoria and John Brown, the ghillie from Balmoral. I took immediate interest. I had heard in a giggly back-of-the-hand-manner since I was a schoolboy about the rough working-class man who had had an apparent love affair with the Queen. He asked me very casually, almost in the way that you would ask someone if they would like a cup of tea, if I would like to play the part of John Brown in the movie. I answered with something approximating "My God, I’d love to", trying all the while to restrain myself from roly-polying down the hill to Holyrood Palace, screaming all the way. WHEN THE DUST settled and sanity prevailed, Douglas told me that the film was yet to be written, but that he had been shown tremendous interest in the project by some of the biggest names in British drama. My feelings went instantly from nervous foreboding (my normal state) to abject fear and loss of will to live. He mentioned that he was leaving the following day for London, when he would talk to Dame Judi and officially offer her the part of Queen Victoria. On a whim I said to him, "Please, just for me, when you offer her the part, find a way in the conversation to drop in that she was not the first choice for the role and then go silent, or change the subject. If she is anything remotely like every actress I have ever met she will find it impossible not to ask you who the first choice happened to be. Appear loth to mention who it is, and do it as if you wanted to spare the feelings of the most unfortunate soul who, for her own reasons, couldn’t do the part. On being pressed, cajoled, harried, nagged or, in the extremely unlikely event, physically attacked, release the information that the first choice was Bob Hoskins and tell me what effect it has." The reason I did this was that I was sure she would find it funny and perhaps put her in a silly way in touch with me, and secondly because the first time I met Bob Hoskins was at the Edinburgh Festival some years before when he was dressed completely as Queen Victoria for a satirical role he was playing with the Ken Campbell roadshow. At the time he had told me about a fight he had been involved in, in a public toilet in Piccadilly, Manchester while dressed as Queen Victoria, which can still make me laugh to this day, at least ten years on. When Douglas sprang this information on Judi she apparently threw her head back and laughed peals of golden laughter in the way only she can do. More about the laughter later. THE MOVIE’S screenplay was to be written by Jeremy Brock, and was waited for with bated breath. When it eventually arrived, it was greeted by all and sundry as no less than a masterpiece and had everyone leaping up and down with unbridled glee. Everyone, that is except me. I immediately sank into a black depression, like a night-time free fall into a giant tin of boot polish. The very thought of acting with Judi had me terrified. I could see myself being exposed as an impostor, the drama equivalent of one of those grinning half-wits in a kilt sitting on a bale of hay in the Hogmanay show on television. At this point I came up with my master plan. I would have to meet her before it started. I asked Douglas to arrange a lunch for Judi and me in London. I couldn’t face the idea that our first meeting would be at the read-through of the script where someone might giggle at my attempt to act with a living legend. The request was met with furrowed brows and bewildered expressions, but none-the-less arranged, at the Caprice restaurant in St James’s, a place where I felt comfortable. I arrived far too early and shuffled around in my seat, wondering what I would say to this woman, when I had an idea. I would nip out and buy myself a cigar that would settle my nerves a bit. Nervousness has invariably given me some really crap ideas. I set off for Dunhill’s store, which was only one block away from the restaurant, and made my purchase. I was new to cigar-smoking then and it subsequently took longer than I expected because of all the well-meaning advice I was given by the manager of the store. It’s hardly like buying a packet of fags. You never hear cigarette-smokers sitting together talking about great fags they have smoked. In the event, it took ages more than I wanted it to and from my previous position of being early I was now late. Cigars in pocket I ran back to the restaurant to find Judi sitting at the table waiting for me. I apologised and went on at great length about the cigar store and why it took so long and was met with a warm tolerant smile that I would get to know and love very much in the following years, years of friendship that I treasure in my heart, and shall for ever, During the lunch and the laughs that ensued I asked her if she would like to see my pierced nipples of which I was very proud. I thought she would collapse on the spot. She turned down the opportunity in the giggling way that most people would turn down the idea of swimming the Channel in a duffel coat and wellies ... The day of the read-through of the script arrived and we gathered, the entire cast, at a rather bleak room in that fancy new part of Chelsea down the river where the docks used to be. Judi was her usual self, putting everyone at ease with her warm friendly manner. The reading went very well, I even felt so good that I sat beside Judi throughout. She was wonderful and spread the feeling of warmth and confidence through the room. Judi has that indefinable quality of changing every room that she walks into; she seems to emanate a spirit of something very good, something very worthwhile. We had lunch where we talked and laughed with the cast of my dreams (Antony Sher, Geoffrey Palmer, Richard Pasco, David Westhead) and had the pleasure of hearing her laugh again. She has the female equivalent of the laugh of a docker, or maybe a blacksmith. It is a hearty, buxom, sexy laugh, which is adored, not only by comedians like me, but by everyone who has had the pleasure of being close to it. The filming started soon after; our first scene together was one where I have been summoned to meet her in the summerhouse on the Isle of Wight soon after my arrival with my horses. The scene was meant to be very tense, since she (the Queen) disapproved of John Brown being there at all. It had been an idea of people in government to try to get her out of mourning the death of her husband, Albert, and back into her duties as Queen which she hadn’t been doing for a number of years. She was sitting at her desk with two ladies-in-waiting standing behind her and various lackeys dotted about the room when I was summoned to enter to be interviewed. I will never forget the power of the scene as long as I live. There was a long walk from the door to the desk, reminiscent of a court-martial entrance, which I tried to do in a semi-regimental manner with my kilt swinging around my milk-white legs. The Queen is busy reading her diary for a very long time and is eventually reminded that I am standing there waiting, when she looks up as the Queen, and positively nails me to the floor with her expression of cold dissent. There is no going back now. AT THE END OF the meeting, after several inquiries by her about my family etc, I blurt out a statement to her about how much she must have loved her husband because she obviously missed him so much. Brown makes the comment very much as a new country fellow, which he indeed was. It has the most profound effect on her and she loses her temper in the most extraordinary way, bursting into tears and being escorted from the room in a dreadful emotional state, and I am roughly taken from the room, bewildered, having caused the entire scene. There and then I learned a salutary lesson. Actors of the quality of Judi Dench carry with them an ability to drag the very best from you. That is, when you are fronted by the power of talent so big there is no escape than by acting right back again. There is no question of standing there waving your arms around and trying to remember the words; this is the real thing and it feels great. Even in the scenes where she wasn’t present, like the times when I was standing outside the palace with my horse, refusing to leave my post against her wishes, I could feel her all around me, it was quite extraordinary. Her power to be, as opposed to act, would take my breath away sometimes when it was coming at me. There was a scene in a castle where we were attending a country dance. The music was wonderful as the fiddles took control of the eightsome reel and had us twirling around the floor with great energy and joy. At one point we were standing opposite one another in the ring of eight dancers when our eyes met and I saw her smile - that lovely sensual smile of hers - and thought, "My God, Judi Dench fancies me, what am I to do." Of course, she didn’t, but Queen Victoria didn’t half fancy John Brown and it came screaming out to me, teaching me in no uncertain manner the difference between acting and "being there." Since the first scene in the room where I was interviewed and she burst into tears, I had become a different person, the penny had dropped. Especially when you consider that she did the scene ten or so times, bursting into tears in the most upsetting way every time. I felt like the most privileged man on earth. It was also great to share in her sense of humour off-stage where we shared many a laugh. I remember walking her up the stairs of a castle down at the Scottish Border country when we came upon the heads of some animals that had been shot by one of the previous toffs in some exotic part of the empire long ago. One of them was a sort of mountain goat with a white head and yellowish horns that curled from its head and in a thick swirl around its ears. As we neared it on the stairs Judi blurted out, "Oh look, it’s Michael Heseltine." When the film was finished we heard that it had been snatched up by the great film people Miramax and was to be released as a feature film all over the world. We were delighted, because it was originally intended for television to be broadcast in Britain by the BBC. Judi and I were sent over to America to do some publicity for it. We had the time of our lives trying not to take it too seriously while giving it the respect that it deserved. Most of the interviews were fine, if a little predictable, some of them pompous and unbearable, so we would resort to having a laugh. I would always be asked how it felt to act with Judi and would always answer that it was a nightmare, dealing with the long silences, the tantrums and the sudden mood swings. She would laugh, we both would laugh and life on the press junket would become bearable again. People would even ask if she was serious all the time and had I learned anything from her? I always answered that the main thing I had learned was not to gamble with her. Several times during filming she would have a bet with me on when the shooting would finish that day. Normally the bet would be around £50. I didn’t win even once… WE HAVE REMAINED friends of the closest gossiping giggling variety. Her visits to my house in Scotland with husband Michael and daughter Finty, were looked forward to by the entire family. I still enjoy the eightsome reel with her on these occasions. I loved the company of Judi and Michael so much before he tragically passed away. It took Judi a couple of years to return after Michael’s death. When I saw her lovely face again it reminded me of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s description of a woman in The Brothers Karamazov: "a little tear, frozen in time". In recent years, when we dance the eightsome reel, I know she fancies me, and I would like the world to know that I fancy her right back. The mention of her name creates a lovely little party in my heart.
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