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Jeffery Danny Dench (29 April 1928 – 25 March 2014) was an English actor, best known for his work with the
Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratf ...
. He was the older brother of actress
Judi Dench Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Widely considered one of Britain's greatest actors, she is noted for her versatility, having appeared in films and television, as well as for her numerous roles on the stage ...
.


Personal life

Jeffery Dench was born, on 29 April 1928 in
Tyldesley Tyldesley () is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, England. Within the boundaries of the Historic counties of England, historic county of Lancashire, it is north of Chat Moss near the foothills of the Wes ...
,
Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
, to Eleanora Olive (née Jones), a native of
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a physician who met his future wife while studying medicine at
Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...
. He lived in Tyldesley with his brother Peter; later the family moved to
York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...
where his sister,
Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...
, was born. Dench attended St Peter's, York, where he began acting with the role of
Cleopatra Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (; The name Cleopatra is pronounced , or sometimes in both British and American English, see and respectively. Her name was pronounced in the Greek dialect of Egypt (see Koine Greek phonology). She was ...
in
George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
's '' Caesar and Cleopatra''.
at an army theatre in Catterick before attending the
Central School of Speech and Drama The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, commonly shortened to Central, is a drama school founded by Elsie Fogerty in 1906, as the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for ...
. It was here that he met Betty, his first wife, who was working as a
speech therapist Speech is the use of the human voice as a medium for language. Spoken language combines vowel and consonant sounds to form units of meaning like words, which belong to a language's lexicon. There are many different intentional speech acts, suc ...
. He moved to
Clifford Chambers Clifford Chambers is a village and former civil parish two miles south of Stratford-upon-Avon town centre, in Warwickshire, England. It is on the B4632 road and one mile south of the A3400. It consists of 150 houses and the population of the par ...
and joined the
Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratf ...
in 1963, where he worked for many years. With his wife Betty, Dench had three daughters, including Emma, a
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...
historian. Betty died from a heart attack on 11 January 2002. Dench then married Ann Curtis, a costume designer for the RSC and a longtime family friend. They lived in
Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon ( ), commonly known as Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon (district), Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands region of Engl ...
. In 2012 he became the President of Stratford-upon-Avon Choral Society. On 27 March 2014 it was announced that Jeffery Dench had died. Writing after his death, Sylvia Morris said:
When not playing grotesque old men, he brought humour, warmth and integrity to his parts. As a member of the audience, seeing Jeffery Dench's name on the cast list was a guarantee of quality. Shakespeare did write brilliant leading roles for Burbage and others, but he also wrote for a known company of talented professionals. The RSC has been fortunate to have among its regulars a number of high-quality actors, safe hands that could carry the plays along with distinction. Jeffery Dench was one of those, and if there were to be a late twentieth-century version of the page in the First Folio 'The Names of the Principal Actors in all These Plays', his name would be on the list.
The RSC's artistic director, Gregory Doran, said he was, "the kind of actor that made the RSC what it is: he did not necessarily always play the leading roles, but proved by his presence that the company’s vitality lies in its strength in depth".


Selected acting credits


Film


Television


Stage


References


External links

*
Jeffery Dench
at the
British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

Merry Wives – The Musical
a
the RSC
accessed 19 March 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dench, Jeffery 1928 births 2014 deaths 20th-century English male actors 21st-century English male actors Alumni of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Jeffery Jeffery may refer to: * Jeffery (name), including a list of people with the name * Jeffery (automobile), an early American automobile manufacturer * Thomas B. Jeffery Company * Jeffery Boulevard, a major north–south street on the South Side of Ch ...
English male film actors English male stage actors English male television actors English male voice actors English male Shakespearean actors English people of Irish descent Male actors from Manchester Male actors from York Royal Shakespeare Company members People educated at St Peter's School, York People from Tyldesley