Dame Judi Dench has paid a very personal tribute to her friend and fellow actress Dame Maggie Smith, who died aged 89 in September.
Dame Judy plants individual trees in memory of friends who have died and, on the day of Dame Maggie’s funeral, her gardener notices that the plant planted for her co-star has borne fruit.
“Joe, who works for me, came in and he had a little apple,” Dame Judy told the BBC.
In an interview recorded for the BBC TV tribute Maggie Smith, broadcast on 28 December, she said, “And so I had it in my pocket at her funeral, which is great. was the thing.”
The pair have been friends since they first met in 1957 in a dressing room at the Old Vic Theatre.
Over the decades they have worked together on both stage and screen, most notably in 1985’s A Room With A View, 2004’s Ladies in Lavender, 2011’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and the 2015 sequel, The Second Best Exotic. Marigold Hotel.
In a separate interview for the BBC’s Lives Well Lived series, which will also be broadcast on December 28, mutual friend Charles Dance, who directed the pair of friends in Ladies in Lavender, explains that they How lucky we feel to have the famous duo as our leading ladies. .
“I had Judi Dench and Maggie Smith – I could shoot a telephone directory with them both,” he recalls.
“They just went for it. Little things like them walking up the stairs together, there’s Judy trying to get up before Maggie, and Maggie saying, ‘Stop pushing me, push me. Stop giving!’ It’s all advertising, you know it was great.”
Dame Maggie Smith was known not only for her impeccable comic timing, but also for the caustic putdowns used with stinging effect by characters including Downton Abbey’s Lady Grantham and Harry Potter’s Professor McGonagall.
Fellow Downton star Samantha Bond says newcomers to the series sometimes find it difficult to distinguish between Dame Maggie and the acid-tongued Dowager Countess she portrays.
“I think, maybe, they got confused about whether she was an actor or whether she was scarred…
“If she’s just playing Maggie, it’s fun – it’s real fun, with lots of laughs,” says Bond.
Dame Judy had the final word about her friend and ally: “Oh, she can be very scary. No question, she can be quite scary. Getting on the wrong side of Mags…
“But, oh, we had a great time.
“I’ve known him for a long time, very, very funny and incredibly interesting and great
“But a really, really sweet and special friend.”