Dame Judi Dench, one of the UK's most celebrated actors with a career on stage and on screen stretching back to the mid-1950s, says that there's former co-star with she could never quite see eye-to-eye.
Speaking on Gyles Brandreth's Rosebud podcast, the star, who celebrates her 90th birthday today (Monday, December 9), recalled her time performing alongside heartthrob Lawrence Harvey in Henry V at The Old Vic in 1958.
Dame Judi revealed: "Larry Harvey never looked into my face. Larry Harvey looked about a foot and a bit above my head all the time. He would never look at me, never."
She explained that he believed the part of Catherine of Valois should be played by a taller person. Despite her attempts to attract his attention by stretching her neck, she admits: "It never worked."
Her love for Shakespeare was ignited after watching her brother in a play: "I went to see Macbeth at St Peter's with Peter, my oldest brother, playing Duncan. And he walked in and he said, ‘What bloody man is that?’ I thought, ‘This is for me’."
However, despite her reputation as a dramatic actress, one of her earliest theatre memories is from a comedy.
Image:
Wikimedia Commons)She remembered being taken home halfway through the 1920s Ben Travers farce Cuckoo in the Nest because she found it so hilarious.
Folks were in bed, and then suddenly it opens, and he jumps up wearing what we call long johns.
"I laughed so much that I had to be taken home. I made myself ill laughing."
After Judi composed herself, her mum suggested that since the sight of the man in his underwear wouldn't be as shocking the second time around, they would return to the theatre a couple of days later to give it another try.
She said: "We'll go back and see what happens. So two days later we went and saw it again.
English (US) ·