Judi Dench Tearfully Reacts To Maggie Smith’s Death At Cheltenham Literary Fest
deadline.comA week after Maggie Smith‘s death, best friend Dame Judi Dench is at a loss for words. When asked about Smith’s death at age 89, as well as the death of friend and collaborator Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Dench broke down into tears during a conversation on Saturday at the Cheltenham Literature Festival. “I suppose the energy that’s created by grief…” started Dench before choking up, according to The Times, after interviewer Brendan O’Hea asked what she meant by comparing her grief around late husband Michael Williams’ 2001 death to petrol.
Smith “passed away peacefully” on Friday, Sept. 27, her sons Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin announced in a joint statement. She and Dench appeared together in such films as A Room with a View (1985), Tea with Mussolini (1999) and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015), as well as numerous stage productions.
Robert Fox, who directed Smith and Dench in stage productions of Peter Shaffer’s Lettice and Lovage and David Hare’s The Breath of Life, remembered the late actress as one of the “top tier” theater performers. “There’s Judi, Ian [McKellen] and her.
That’s it,” Fox told Deadline. “It’s incredible that her career stretches as far back as the last days of vaudeville,” he added. “It shows she could do anything.
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