Judi Dench Judi Dench Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years, she performed in several of Shakespeare's plays, in such roles as Ophelia in "Hamlet", Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet", and Lady Macbeth in "Macbeth". Although most of her work during this period was in theatre, she also branched into film work and won a BAFTA Award as Most Promising Newcomer. She drew strong reviews for her leading role in the musical "Cabaret" in 1968. Over the next two decades,
Helen Mirren name to Mirren in the 1950s and changed his name to Basil Mirren. He played the viola with the London Philharmonic before World War II and later drove a taxi cab and was a driving-test examiner, before becoming a civil servant with the Ministry of Transport. Mirren's mother was a working-class Londoner from West Ham, East London, the 13th of 14 children born to a butcher whose own father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria. Mirren considers her upbringing to have been "very anti-monarchist". Mirren was the second of three children; she was born three years after her older