In our special Oscar Issue in March, we asked you to vote for your favorite of all the Academy Award winners for Best Supporting Actor and Actress. The envelope please...The top vote-getters: Kevin Spacey, who nabbed his Best Supporting Oscar for playing a mysterious, club-footed criminal named Verbal in 1995's The Usual Suspects, and Dame Judi Dench, who won for her brief but compelling performance as Queen Elizabeth I in 1998's Shakespeare in Love. Close behind Spacey were Tommy Lee Jones (The Fugitive, 1993) and Denzel Washington (Glory, 1989). Runners-up to Dench were Meryl Streep (Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979) and Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost, 1990).
All six finalists are, of course, also famed for their leading roles--which only proves that talent is unmistakable, in large parts or small.
...Considered one of Great Britain's greatest living actors, Dench has proven her remarkable versatility by moving easily from serious stage work to British sitcoms and Hollywood films. In addition to Shakespeare in Love, her notable screen appearances include A Room With a View; Mrs. Brown; the James Bond movies Golden Eye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, and Die Another Day (as the divine miss M); Tea with Mussolini; Chocolat; The Shipping News--playing the aura of our other poll winner, Kevin Spacey--and Iris.
Born December 9, 1934, in York, England, Dench attended the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. She joined the Old Vie in 1957 and the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1969. In 1987, she was named Dame Commander of the British Empire, the female equivalent of being knighted. Her husband of 30 years, actor Michael Williams, died in 2001.
This is an excerpt from an article which appeared in the June, 2003 edition of Biography.