Judi Dench: With a Crack in Her Voice

This book arrived in a timely manner, was in great shape and is a wonderful read. Any and all Dame Judi fans should add this to their library.

I read a review that had said this book doesn't go very far into Dame Judi Dench's private life, but rather sticks with her professional career, and this is very true. The book highlights Judi Dench's career from the very beginning by focusing on all that she has accomplished professionly. The book isn't totally void of private tidbits about Judi Dench, few have been generously exposed and are pleasant to read. My favorite parts of the book are told about how Judi Dench loves to play funny tricks on her costars, she will go far for a laugh. I have seen quite alot of her work and it is really neat to read about the behind the scenes antics and dramas that went on. Overall, great read and very enjoyable for anyone who is a Judi Dench fan, you will learn alot from reading this book.

This is a gently and beautifully written book and embues a real sense of how the great Lady has developed her craft and how it has developed her as a person. I found it particulary interesting in terms of Dame Judi's early life as she and I hail from the same city (York) and her Father was my Grandmother's family Doctor. What you get from this book is really what moulded Judi as an actor, by and large it steers away from her personal life and personal expose. I for one am glad of this as too often the style of the modern biographer is to seek out skeletons lerking in cupboards first and foremost, however tenious the evidence. This is more of a celebratory style of the working aspect of Judi's life, how it developed and what traits lie at her core, what it is that makes her one, if not "the" finest living British actress. It is a compliment of a book and collaborative overhaul of her career form it's inception. It manages not to be sychophantic and feels, moreover like a gentle but very interesting conversation with Judi. It delicate style almost certainly reflects Judi's personality to some degree, a private and retiring woman not given to self inflation nor aduration. It's a hark back to respectful style of biography and chronicals a remarkable career superbly. A very different genre of modern biography and worth it for this reason but moreover for it's outstanding and wonderful subject.

This biography is a rarity. Its purpose is to share the tremendous career and achievements of Mrs. Judi Dench, and it happily is lacking what biography has often become. It is not several hundred pages of dubious gossip or borderline slander. It is not a litany of innuendo from those who claim some dubious relationship to the subject and then do their best to damage the individual's reputation. If you are looking for gossip-strewn trash, buy history as revised and fictionalized by Kitty Kelly. Mr. John Miller has written a wonderful book about a woman of substance and of great personal and professional merit. Unlike other biographers who survive based upon how low they will sink for tabloid attention, he did not write whatever someone would spew to relate a story that was not there.Dame Judi's career has spanned a period that has allowed her to work with many of the greatest names of the theatre of the 20th Century. Additionally the actresses, the Directors and Playwrights also read like a list of those most accomplished in their fields. Many fans first met her as "M" in the James Bond Film Series, or as "Mrs. Brown", in her portrayal of Queen Victoria, or Queen Elizabeth in "Shakespeare In Love". The latter two films won her nominations for The Academy Award and the trend continued this year in Chocolat.If you are interested in a story of a hard working actress, a woman who is a consummate professional, and respected by virtually all who have worked with her, this book is for you. However if you are like the journalist that opened a press conference by asking her a personal and intimate question, which caused her to rightfully dismiss the press conference format of dirt gathering from that day on, you will have to look elsewhere.This is a great book about a woman who has succeeded in all areas she chose, and has done so with style and without the sordid notoriety that passes for fame today. Hers' is not a career of 15 minutes or 15, 30, or 45 years, but more like another legend Sir John Gielgud, who when he hit his 90th birthday never thought to pause.Mr. Miller is to be commended for writing a worthwhile book and not a hardbound tabloid. If he seems less than objective due to the praise he has collected from her peers, it in fact only does "seem" that way. There are accomplished people today who can be admired and pointed to as role models. This book documents one. The other group tends to be long on press clippings and short on substance, but they also unfortunately sell books by the ton to book reading voyeurs.Mr. Miller has written a work for the other readers.