Judi Dench vs. Maggie Smith

I'm a big fan of Judi's, although I certainly enjoy Maggie.

They've both reached the age where just play their public personae.

Judi. She did musicals, comedy, drama, Shakespeare, the legitimate theater, tv and movies.

Although Maggie ain't half bad.

Tracey Ullman

Glenda Jackson is more talented than the pair of them combined.

I think the current celebration of Dench is kinda late because she was shunned by the movie industry for 30 years.

Maggie Smith has done some great roles but critics complain that too much of her schtick was lifted from this ghastly self-hating queen—

....

Maggie by a hair, but I love them both.

R5

Critics can say Maggie was out of her depth in non-comic roles but Glenda Jackson was incapable of ANY comic roles.

Maggie has a wonky eye.

r9, that's crap! Glenda has an amazing sense of humour.

R10 Miss Smith DBE has Graves Disease, some cancer, a broken heart and myopia. Miss Dench DBE has Macular Degeneration, Stage 2 Dementia and Virtue Signaller's Disease,

I don't think you can say one is better than the other. They're both great Dames.

r12, and Glenda Jackson has come back to acting. Perfect time for it, now her rivals are dropping off LOL And Glenda turned down a Damehood because she's anti-monarchy.

R12 Unfortunately she's ANTI-everything... which is not a good sign for anyone who wants to be employed.

Patricia Routledge

Imagine what her Mrs. Lovett would have been like if she had accepted the role.

Glenda, Judi and Maggie last year

Mon dieu, Catherine du Valois-

Judi Dench birthed the Tudor Dynasty

R17 I wonder if they hate each other 'behind the mask'?

Maggie Smith was quite bitchy about "Lord Kingsley or whatever he calls himself nowadays"

Judi didn't even have a film career before Glenda retired from acting... watch this clip and laugh your ass off:

Maggie and JUDI are great friends. I was surprised JUDI did not appear in either Harry potter or downton abbey. Both great but Maggie has the edge...see the prime of miss Jean Brodie. All wanna be actors should watch Maggie and Scalia's scenes. Possibly the best acting ever on film.

Meryl not so much, overrated...had a fawm in Africa

Yes, Maggie and Celia!

Definitely Maggie Smith. Smith doesn't have to play the same character twice to try and get it right.

Plus Judi Dench has hideous feet. I saw her in sandals once and I had to cancel lunch.

Equal divinities in the firmament.

....and for the poster upthread, Glenda Jackson won her second Oscar for a comedic role, you dolt.

Much as I her enjoy her R23 Maggie does plays the same character more than twice. Tea with Mussolini, Gosford Park, Downton Abbey are very slight variations on the same brittle, snobbish old bag she has specialized in for the past couple of decades, even the Lady in the Van was Lady Violet on welfare. Judi is definitely more versatile, it's easy to imagine her playing any of Maggie's roles but not vice versa.

Here's Smith giving an Oscar and Tony caliber performance in one of my faves of hers Bed Among the Lentils. 49 minutes of Just MAGGIE BEING BRILLIANT straight into the camera. (I love the Talking Heads series, especially Hand of God with Eileen Atkins). And everyone should see The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearn where Smith gives the performance of her career, which is saying a lot, but unfortunately it's hard to find.

I just saw Dench in Murder on Orient Express, and was disappointed by her performance. Wendy Hiller was delicious in the same role in 1974.

Maggie! Mother Superior FTW!

Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson wipe the floor with both of them.

See "Victoria and Abdul" and it may sway your vote. Especially the early scenes showing Dame Judi as Victoria eating. She's outstanding. She's definitely getting a nomination.

[quote]one of my faves of hers Bed Among the Lentils. 49 minutes of Just MAGGIE BEING BRILLIANT straight into the camera. (I love the Talking Heads series, especially Hand of God with Eileen Atkins).

Ah, a kindred spirit! I've watched "Bed Among the Lentils" at least 50 or 60 times, and still find it mesmerizing. And, like you, I'm also fond of "Hand of God." Also, the three monologues with Patricia Routledge are lifelong favorites. (There's a lot more to her than "the Bucket woman.")

But, back on topic, my vote is for Maggie Smith - largely because of her brilliance in "Bed Among the Lentils."

You're complaining R26 about Maggie playing the same character.

You're probably right but that's because writers and authors love her playing Lady Bracknell.

To play Lady Bracknell once R32 could be described as employment to play her several times looks like laziness... I saw her actual Lady Bracknell in London and surprisingly she wasn't very memorable ( Maggie that is not Edith...I'm not quite that old ).

[quote]Judi didn't even have a film career before Glenda retired from acting

Check out this wonderful gem from 1965.

Judi was quite beautiful when she was younger.

from He Who Rides A Tiger

^ She is wearing her Clapham version of 'Cleopatra' mascara in that scene.

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Judi. NO!

She has to wear very short hair because of her UN-photogenic little face.

The mid-60s was the peak years of Swinging London of Op-Art, Courrèges and Mary Quant.

Have you seen the outrageously camp 'Modesty Blaise'?

^ André Courrèges wanted to reduce the human body down to pieces of geometry. And poor Judi Dench couldn't compete because her waist size was 24 inches and her legs were 24 inches.

Smith has always been very mannered the quality of her performances varies based on how much she leans on what she finds easy. When it comes to playing a certain kind of witty, caustic upper class snob, she's pretty peerless, but I've always preferred her in roles that require her to strip away some of the stylistic artifice that she does so well (BED AMONG THE LENTILS, LONELY PASSION OF JUDITH HEARNE, LOVE AND PAIN AND THE WHOLE DAMN THING).

Dench is a no-nonsense actress who I think has more range than Smith.

Jackson is another who can be very mannered (her performances in HEDDA and THE MAGNIFICENT SARAH are barely a step away from a drag queen), but when she's on all cylinders or plays quieter roles, she is superb. She is a truly unsentimental actress, which is a great quality. I think she and Judy Davis are similar in that regard.

R42 How do you gauge if a movie actress is "unsentimental"?

Movie actors and actresses are 'shadows'. We are watching a human being impersonating another human being, reading someone else's lines. Their image is cut and positioned by others.

I don't feel qualified to judge any actor or actress unless I have seen them "naked" on stage or in real life over a number of years.

I've only seen Dench on stage once.

I absolutely love her in Stevie r42.

I did a musical r3....ON BROADWAY!

Dear "Dame Maggs" R45 I don't think that was a musical. More of a cabaret revue.

"How do you gauge if a movie actress is "unsentimental"?"

Generally by how they approach a role where the actress could easily pull at the heartstrings. Jackson did a film called RETURN OF THE SOLDIER where he played a truly good person (which is really hard to do and make interesting), and she did it by stripping the character of any sentimentality and, as a result, was all the more moving for having done so.

Dear R47 I cannot agree. A movie actress does what the director tells them to do.

Movie actresses are puppets in the hand of their movie director. A Trilby in the hands of a Svengali.

Glenda Jackson often played hard and unsentimental characters on screen but I hear she definitely wept and got shriekingly sentimental when in the British parliament.

Who would Bette vote for?

Did Maggie have a daughter that burnt her Hampstead house down? That would be a no!

r49: The only thing Bette Davis and Joan Crawford had in common was their admiration for Glenda Jackson.

R49 Bette Davis didn't act, she misbehaved!

She was hopeless without me to keep her misbehaviour in check.

Glenda Jackson and her posse. Bow down bitches!

[quote]Glenda Jackson and her posse. Bow down bitches!

With all of Glenda's money, you'd think she'd buy a better outfit than a plaid picnic blanket.

R53 That trio, surely, are playing 'The Three Witches of Macbeth'!

R54 I don't know how much money Glenda has. I know she has a sad inner life.

She was an employee of the British Labour Party for 20 years but her son (Dan Hodges) used to work for the party too but he's become progressively angry at the party's duplicity and ineptitude and has turned against them.

r56, apparently Glenda lives in her son's basement.

NOTES ON A SCANDAL 2

^ OMG

Is Glenda as short as Pygmy-Dench?

Toss up. I adore Maggie Smith. She has an uncanny ability to steal every scene. Her snobs always have a touch of humanity to them. However, I can't see her doing what Judi pulled off in Notes on a Scandal.

You can't have a gay card till you have watched The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Superlative acting. Plus a butch dyke gym teacher!

Thanks to those above who brought up Bed Among the Lentils. Smith's performance is absolutely hypnotic, wrenching and yet she lands every laugh (even some that aren't in Bennett's text). I SO wish Talking Heads, surely Bennett's masterpiece, was available in the US on DVD; it is in the UK. Why can't we have nice things, too?

[quote]You can't have a gay card till you have watched The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Superlative acting. Plus a butch dyke gym teacher!

Oh, darling, I did the lez thing so much better in The Shipping News. You better get your copy before they are all removed from the shelves as Mr. Kevin Spacey has a starring role in it.

Cate presents Glenda:

[quote] I SO wish Talking Heads, surely Bennett's masterpiece, was available in the US on DVD; it is in the UK. Why can't we have nice things, too?

If there are other Region 2 PAL DVDs you're interested in (or, perhaps, even if that's the only one), it might be worth looking into a multi-region player. There were a few things I wanted, including "Talking Heads," that made the purchase worthwhile. I bought the Samsung E360. It's a very basic, no-frills unit, but adequate for the few "foreign" discs I've bought.

That fabulous scene in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie which pits Maggie Smith against Pamela Franklin was beyond brilliant. I think Franklin bested Maggie in that scene BUT Maggie did a great job overall. She did a wonderful job of playing a woefully misguided idealist whose morals or lack of them ended up in a school girl's death.

Judi Dench has more range.

Glenda in Elizabeth R is one of the greatest achievements in acting. Period.

Judi and Maggie will be joined by Eileen and Joan for a Dame smackdown in a BBC documentary..... Glenda is too busy winning awards for proper acting.

Pamela retired from acting at a young age, a shame as she is brilliant. Celia Johnston's Miss McKay channels the wicked witch of the west, and also is beyond brilliant. The scene with Miss Brodie, Miss McKay, and Mr. Lowther may be the best acting ever filmed. This is a film that you pick up something yoh missed on repeated viewings. Remember the toady Miss Gaunt? The swashbuckling art teacher? The Lesbianish dance between Sandy and Monica at Sandy's? And the incomparable Mary McGregor?

Assassin! ASSASSIN!!!

Like comparing apples and oranges...

R72, more like lemons and limes.

Yes, R 73 and Maggie is the more tart of the two.

I was on the receiving end of Dame Maggie's withering glance circa 1973.

Details please, R75.

R70 Pamela became typecast( to a certain degree) in horror films doing things like The Legend Of Hell House. She also did guest TV appearances as well. She did the best that she could but never reached the lofty acting heights she deserved at one point.

I think Pamela and her family own a bookshop in West Hollywood.

I can remember my 12 year old jaw dropped when Pamela Franklin appeared casually nude in Jean Brodie. She said it was the last thing they filmed, so that she would be 18 when they filmed it (she was 17 when they started filming).

Wasn't that such a hot scene with Pam being nude? She looked very attractive even afterwards when she only wore a sweater and was still sexy!

Pam's husband(Harvey Jason, a character actor who has done tons of film and TV) and their son, Louis Jason, own Mystery Pier Books in West Hollywood. A very boutique book shop, they sell mostly first editions.

That's interesting, R78.

I think actors can be nude in European films when they are under 18 if they get permission from the parents.

Leonard Whiting was only 17 and Olivia Hussey was only 15 when they appeared nude in Zeffirelli's 1968 "Romeo & Juliet".

I had the privilege of meeting Dame Maggie in N.Y.. I have never met a classier or more gracious person, she asked my name and what I did and where I lived, totally without ego. I have met many nice actresses...Joan Rivers, Joan Bennett, Julie Andrews, Rikki Lake, June Lockhart, Angela Lansbury, Delta Burke to name a few. Nobody was as nice as Dame Maggie was to me. And I met Linda Levin, who was utterly charming.

Saw them both in David Hare’s “The Breath of Life” in the West End. Not a great play but it was very entertaining to watch the two of them spar.

Judi likes trees and champagne.

Dear Theatre Queen R81. I envy you meeting Dame Maggie.

Was she promoting a play? How tall was she compared to you.

R84, I am 6 foot three inches, 175 lbs., so she seemed petite, maybe slightly shorter than the average woman. She was in N.Y. doing "Lettice and Lovage" with Margaret Tyzack. She seemed totally down to earth. Also, I meant Linda Levin, who, contrary to what some say on here, was also very nice.

^

You're lucky. I understand that's the last regular production she has been in.

Since then she has only done the monologue "Bed Among The lentils" on stage.

I think it's very important to note that Maggie gave us Toby Stephens.

Toby is lovely as was his father Robert before he drank too much. But Maggiecappeared in the West End in Three Tall Women and Lady in the Van. Lady also a movie, maybe 2015.

Does Toby take after Maggie of Robert? I can't quite decide.

He has Maggie's reddishness but that Robert Stephens was such a queer fish as well as an alcoholic

Jackson looks like Ian McKellan's twin in that clip in R64's link.

R38. Oh dear. It's like the kind of haircut they gave you when they used to shut you up in an asylum : (

R91 Glenda had made her name in two 1960s films set in asylums

Happy 83rd birthday to the beautiful Maggie Smith!

DAME JUDI.

Dame Judi, but I love them both.

Judi has more "range", but Maggie has more fire and her timing is unbeatable.

So Maggie.

Maggie was magnificent in Lettice and Lovage. One of my more memorable theatergoing experiences.

I was surprised I liked the play being that I find Equus and Amadeus execrable.

97 Lettice and Lovage was designed as entertainment

Equus and Amadeus were designed to be 'profound'

I was surprised to see that J was actually quite pretty when young....who knew?

R99 may look quite pretty but her director said she looked like a pigmy.

She is as tall as my waist.

So I look on you tube because of this thread to find Franklin's nude scene.

Very nice.

And probably an untrimmed lovely bushy bush because people had normal views of the human body back then without the neurotic issues of today.

Maggie Smith gives one of her very best performances in "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne" as an alcoholic Catholic who loses her faith. No mannerisms, a devastating piece of acting.

I love Maggie for her role as Dora Charleston in Murder By Death.

Dame Judi is absolutely fantastic in Philomena Sad story but told so well

[quote]R100 She may look quite pretty, but her director said she looked like a pigmy. She is as tall as my waist.

Now, Maggie....

[quote]R102 Maggie Smith gives one of her very best performances in "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne" as an alcoholic Catholic who loses her faith. No mannerisms, a devastating piece of acting.

Such a good film...the book by Briane Moore is equally fine, though also utterly, utterly depressing.

If you liked JUDITH HEARNE, you might look at his novel I AM MARY DUNNE (1965)

For Christ's sake, it's not a competition. Or a zero sum game. We love them both!

^ You say we love them both!

But Dench was a nobody from 1965 to 1993. Maggie was a movie star consistently from 1958

[quote]R107 For Christ's sake, it's not a competition. Or a zero sum game. We love them both!

Judi, losing....

[quote] But Dench was a nobody from 1965 to 1993. Maggie was a movie star consistently from 1958

Judi starred in two tv shows that were built around her (one which has been consistently repeated on PBS for years). Mags got a secondary role on Downton Abbey and didn't even get top billing or "also starring" credit. Heck, American actress Elizabeth McGovern was billed ahead of her.

Judi starred in two successful tv shows that were built around her (one has been playing on PBS for years). Mags had a secondary role on Downton Abbey and didn't even get star billing. An American actress was billed before her.

Vanessa Redgrave

I met Dame Maggie in New York during L and L. She is warm, sweet, modest, and down to earth. Lettice is theatre at its best. Keep your trashy Wicked and Hamilton, strictly for the great unwashed. Also saw Dame Maggie at Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Dame Judi

I love Maggie in Death on the Nile as Miss Bowers. 'Come along its time for your massage'

It's been my experience that men are least attracted to women who treat them well'

^ No, that isn't the real Dame Judi.

That is Judy wearing a very unflattering wig that she would NEVER wear in real life.

I think that picture is 'Philomena' who a basically an uneducated Irish simpleton who believes in the Catholic Church. Actors and actresses are willing to make themselves ugly for an Oscar winning role.

R116 Actors and actresses are willing to make themselves ugly for an Oscar winning role.

Charlize Theron and Dicaprio went "ugly" to win an Oscar

Meryl Streep went ugly for all her Oscar wins. In fact, she went ugly for all her roles.

My favorite Maggie Smith interview...

[quote]R118 Meryl Streep went ugly for all her Oscar wins.

Oh yes. She's just infamously hideous in [italic] Kramer vs. Kramer [/italic]

And [italic] Sophie's Choice.... [/italic] a gargoyle.

Anybody know why Brett and Smith disliked each other so much? He was friends with Stephens.

R122 Did Brett and Smith have a feud?

I guess Jeremy and Robert Stephens competed for the same roles. They both played Sherlock Holmes.

You're right R121. Sophie was a gargoyle when photographed on the right side of their face and then sweetness when photographed on the left side of their face.

You could tell the mood of each scene by the camera position. Sweet in one scene; demented in the next

That's when Streep became predictable. Tick...Tick...Tick...

And yes Bosley R116 Actors and actresses are willing to make themselves ugly for an Oscar winning role.

And they're prepared to be blind (Jane Wyman, Anne Bancroft), crippled (Day-Lewis), alcoholic (Ray Milland), split-personality neurotic Ronnie Colman and Joanne Woodward), armless (Harold Rusell, and .... OMG... I have just Googled and 59 actors have pretended to be "physically challenged".

[quote]R124 That's when Streep became predictable. Tick...Tick...Tick...

It's not like Streep is my favorite-most actress in the world...but was Katharine Hepburn ever anything LESS than predictable?

She became a mannered charicature in her very first film...

I’m not a huge Streep fan - her best performances in the past 20 years are in THE HOURS and PRADA - but Katharine Hepburn was outperformed by the far more abrasive and less “classy” Barbara Stanwyck and Bette Davis. She was also an overrated screwball comedienne - give me Jean Arthur or Myrna Loy any day. Or again, Stanwyck.

She was also something of an arrogant twat. Look at her yelling at everyone off camera HERE until she gets her way.

Talk about "tick tick tick"....that jaunty, I'm-so-casual schtick with the leg propped up stance she clung to was so calculated and phony.

Is that four letter word you used appropriate for Hepburn R127?

She was not fecund.

[quote]R128 Is that four letter word you used appropriate for Hepburn?

She was every G-DAMN 4 LETTER WORD in the BOOK! (No, just kidding. I admire her, but she also comes off as incredibly arrogant off screen.)

Was it ever established if she bisexual, or actually full-on lez?

R1, I had forgotten what a huge talent Tracey Ullman was. I happened to catch the show when it was on and couldn't get over how incredible her impressions were. Simply brilliant.

They have both whittled their performances down to oh-so-posh-dowager mannerisms and intimidating stares, but Maggie Smith is much better at it. I cannot stand Dench.

R129 I don't wish to be rude but I get the impression that Hepburn was so in love with her family, her heritage and her own good sense that she didn't have any love left to give to anyone else. The Wikipedia account of her marriage sounds rather lame.

And that's OK by me because I've been celibate for more than a decade.

R132 Well, there's the book by that former rentboy from the Golden Age who says he fixed Hepburn up with hundreds of women over the decades. And he said the whole thing with Spencer Tracy (who was also bi) was more of a charade than anything truly erotic.

Hepburn had enormous range. Little Women, Alice Adams, Stage Door, Summertime, Suddenly Last Summer, Long Days Journey into Night, Lion in Winter.

And she regularly returned to the stage when she didn't have to simply for the challenge and the joy of it. What more do you want? Who could come close to that today?

She even admitted to being totally in love with herself and not going to the Oscars for fear of losing rather than she was above them.

You want the 'Oh why didn't you ask Andrea Leeds?' act?

Dame KST

Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis(with William Wyler) Jean Arthur and Myrna Loy.

You don't have to choose. They were all terrific and made terrific films as well.

We can enjoy all of them. And unlike today the studio system gave them the best support to show them off to the their best advantage. Unlike today where everything seems to be done on the fly.

I know Mamma Mia made a gazillion dollars but did anybody worth knowing actually enjoy it?

I find Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck dreary in most films. As limited as Hepburn may have been, she had more charisma than either of them. Plus many of her performances from the 40s onwards hold up better than their melodramatic histrionics.

R115

"I know you! Selfish and vain: you think you have a divine right! You don't belong in the world, you belong HERE! YOU BIG BABY!"

^ What is that trash R139 doing in Dame Maggie Smith's thread!

That Heche woman is trash! And she's got a Voldermoort nose!

The future Dames

Dame Emily Watson, Dame Samantha Morton, Dame Olivia Colman

[quote]Hepburn had enormous range.

Then why did she play every part the same?

[quote]Hepburn had enormous range...

...playing frigid, sexless, patrician women.

Joe, Alice, Mrs Venable and Eleanor.

Yep all exactly the same parts.

"Hepburn had enormous range"

She ran the gamut of emotions from "a" to "b"

Kate was fascinating

^ I definitely agree (though I do think Eleanor of Aquitaine and Queen Hecuba were beyond her range)

She was thrilling in this—

This thread is getting a bit off topic.

Maggie replaced Kate in that rather lame "Travels with My Aunt" in 72.

And Maggie repeated Kate's role in the cheap TV version on "Suddenly Last Summer" in 93.

[quote]R148 Maggie replaced Kate in that rather lame "Travels with My Aunt" in 72. And Maggie repeated Kate's role in the cheap TV version on "Suddenly Last Summer" in 93.

But Maggie never replaced the Great Kate as Hollywood's Reigning Muff Diving Champ.

Mirren.

No contest.

^ You say 'No Contest' but Mirren was the head 'Downstairs' in 'Gosford Park' and Maggie Smith was lording it over the 'Upstairs'.

Hepburn stone cold sober found herself absolutely fascinating.

I find her absolutely fascinating as well.

How can you truly love another person when you're so in love with yourself?

But it sure beats self loathing.

R152 meet R132

r151, but Mirren showed her asshole in Caligula as John Gielgud was fond to recall.

Mirren has been a sex symbol for decades.

Maggie wrapped all that up in California Suit.

Dench, not even in the room.

Yes, Mirren, no contest.

Actually, it is a race to the couch to see whether Dame Judy or Dame Maggie will play Dame May Whitty in her biography.

What do you mean R154 that Maggie "wrapped all that up" in California Suite.

That was a fairly inane jewish playlet.

[quote]Judi Dench vs. Maggie Smith

Will there be jello wrestling at this competition?

Watching California Suite I couldn't get through it.

I tried watching some of the Fonda/Alda homage to Woody Allen.

Absolutely dire.

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A very young Judi Dench

A Young Judi Dench Was Told She Had “Every Single Thing Wrong” with Her Face

[quote]My biggest regret? I wish I'd had more children, confesses Dame Judi Dench

You mean the one that burnt down your Hampstead Heath house wasn't enough?

Judi's husband was such a fanatical Catholic that their daughter was terrified to tell him that she got knocked up.

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r154, California Suite was as sexy as the future Dame Maggie got.

Dame Judi has never been set afire. Cold.

Dame Helen still smoulders...

Dame Vanessa Redgrave

[quote]But her pygmy-sized body makes things VERY difficult for her theatre producers. She can't appear with a normal-sized actor because the audience giggles.

I'm taller than that dwarf Elaine Paige who, in Sunset Boulevard, had to have the steps lowered because she couldn't climb them.

Judi is 155 cm

^ 155 cm is inadequate for a real man.

The fantasy-world of movies can disguise this inadequacy but it can't happen in the hard reality of the live stage.

Dame Judi is 83 so she could have lost few inches

Paul Newman was 168 cm according to Larry King

[quote] The fantasy-world of movies can disguise this inadequacy but it can't happen in the hard reality of the live stage.

I remember her saying for one of the James Bond movies that they had to build a special ramp for her because she had to walk into the scene and come face to face with someone.

Now, now r169 you exaggerate. They actually had to lower the handrail on the stairs so you could see her.