15 hours ago
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Dame Judi Dench has revealed a precise idiosyncratic tribute to her person and chap histrion Dame Maggie Smith, who died successful September aged 89.
Dame Judi plants idiosyncratic trees successful representation of friends who person died and, connected the time of Dame Maggie's funeral, her gardener recovered the sapling planted for her chap acting dame had borne fruit.
"Joe, who works for me, came successful and helium had 1 small crab apple," Dame Judi told the BBC.
"And truthful I had it successful my pouch astatine her funeral, which was a precise bully happening to have," she said, successful an interrogation recorded for the TV tribute Maggie Smith astatine the BBC, to beryllium broadcast connected 28 December.
The brace had been friends from the infinitesimal they archetypal met successful a dressing country astatine The Old Vic theatre successful 1957.
Over the decades they worked unneurotic connected some signifier and screen, astir notably successful 1985's A Room With A View, 2004's Ladies successful Lavender, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel successful 2011, and its 2015 sequel, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
In a abstracted interrogation for the BBC's Lives Well Lived series, besides to beryllium broadcast connected 28 December, communal person Charles Dance, who directed the brace of friends successful Ladies successful Lavender, describes however fortunate helium felt to person the celebrated duo arsenic his starring ladies.
"I had Judi Dench and Maggie Smith - I could person changeable the telephone directory with those two," helium recalls.
"They conscionable went for it. Little things similar they're moving up the stairs together, there's Judi trying to get up determination earlier Maggie, and Maggie saying 'stop pushing me, halt pushing me!' That's each ad-libbed, you know. It was wonderful."
Dame Maggie Smith was celebrated not lone for her impeccable comic timing but besides for the caustic put-downs utilized with specified stinging effect by characters including Downton Abbey's Lady Grantham and Harry Potter's Professor McGonagall.
Fellow Downton prima Samantha Bond says fledgling performers successful the bid sometimes recovered it hard to separate betwixt Dame Maggie and the acid-tongued dowager countess she portrayed.
"I think, perhaps, they got confused astir whether she was the histrion oregon whether she was the dowager…
"If she's conscionable playing Maggie, past it's amusive - it's existent fun, with a batch of laughs," says Bond.
Dame Judi has the last connection connected her person and ally: "Oh, she could beryllium precise scary. No question, she could beryllium rather frightening. Get connected the incorrect broadside of Mags…
"But, oh, we had specified bully times.
"I person known her for a long, agelong time. Very, precise comic and unbelievably witty and formidable.
"But a really, truly saccharine and peculiar friend."
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