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…” – Judi Dench From London’s glittering West End to Broadway’s bright lights, from her Academy Award-winning role as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love to “M” in the James Bond films, Judi Dench has treated audiences to some of the greatest performances of our time.  She made her professional acting debut in 1957 with England’s Old Vic theatre company playing Ophelia in Hamlet , Katherine in Henry V (her New York debut), and then, Juliet. In 1961, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company playing Anya in The Cherry Orchard with John Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft. In 1968, she went beyond the classical stage to become a sensation as Sally Bowles in Cabaret, adding musical comedy to her repertoire. Over the years, Dench has given indelible performances in the classics as well as some of the greatest plays and musicals of the twentieth century including Noël Coward’s Hay Fever, Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, Kaufman and Hart’s The Royal Family and David Hare’s Amy’s View (for which she won the Tony Award).  Recently, she made a triumphant return to A Midsummer Night’s Dream as Titania, a role she first played in 1962, now played as a theatre-besotted Queen Elizabeth I.  Her film career has been filled with unforgettable performances of some unforgettable women: Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown, the terrifying schoolteacher Barbara Covett in Notes on a Scandal and the writer Iris Murdoch in Iris.  And, for the BBC, Dench created another unforgettable woman when she brought her great comic timing and deeply felt emotions to the role of Jean Pargetter in the long-running BBC series As Time Goes By. And Furthermore is, however, more than the story of a great actress’s career.   It is also the story of Judi Dench’s life: her early days as a child in a family that was in love with the theatre; her marriage to actor Michael Williams; the joy she takes in her daughter, the actress Finty Williams, and her grandson, Sammy.  Filled with Dench’s impish sense of humor, diamond-sharp intelligence and photos from her personal archives, And Furthermore is the book every fan of the great Judi Dench will cherish. Readers expecting or hoping that Dench would dish up a little dirt will be disappointed in this comfortably chatty memoir. Intended as an addendum or a follow-up to John Miller�s 1998 biography, Judi Dench: With a Crack in Her Voice, the famed Dame keeps her considerable wits and her British cool firmly tucked about her as she recalls her personal and professional life in breezy, all-too-brief detail. An icon of the British stage and an internationally renowned movie actress, Dench has participated in a breathtaking number of stage, television, and film productions, most of which she manages to touch on lightly. Though her laundry list of late and great colleagues and collaborators is staggering, she accords this vast congregation of coworkers a mere sentence or two each. Even stingier with her personal life, she glosses over her tremendously successful 30-year marriage to the late actor-director Michael Williams, allowing her practiced veneer to crack only slightly as she recalls his death from cancer. Doling out the morsels of her life sparingly, like all great entertainers, she leaves her audience wanting more. --Margaret Flanagan “There ain’t nothing like this Dame!...much of her crisp intelligence is there on the page alongside her puckish sense of humor and her evident goodness…What a gal.” – The Daily Mail (UK) “Dame Judi Dench's memoir is highly amusing… You are left in no doubt that Dame Judi loves to have fun, that laughter is her oxygen.’ – The Guardian UK   DAME JUDI DENCH is one of the foremost stage, screen, and television actors of our time.  Honored with every award given for performances on stage and screen, she was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1970, created a Dame of the British Empire in 1988 and a Companion of Honour in 2005. AND FURTHERMORE (Chapter 1) Early days 1934–1957 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