Dame Judi Dench is one of England’s most distinguished actors. “She’s a peculiarly British heroine. An underdog. Dench is short and a little dumpy and not obviously glamorous. And yet she can transcend her given lot to become beautiful and heroic. In polls, she is regularly voted Britain’s best-dressed woman, Britain’s most admired woman (she recently beat the Queen down to number two), the woman we would most like to be.”