Not even four months after Maggie Smith left the Earthly realm, another of her generation’s greats, fellow Dame and celebrated actress Joan Plowright, has passed away. But she once got together with Smith and two other contemporaries, Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins, to discuss working well into their 80s. The clip gains an extra special meaning today.
Nothing Like A Dame, the documentary film which joins Plowright, Smith, Dench, and Atkins for one of their frequent tea sessions, was filmed at Plowright’s house in 2018 by British director Roger Michell. It contains delightful moments which will become all the more remarkable with the passing years — many were shared in honor of the Harry Potter actress when she died in September of last year, and they’ve resurfaced again in tribute to Plowright.
One of the most striking happens when Smith shares her frustrations with Dench always getting offered parts first, which then would end up on the rest of the women’s tables after she passed. But Plowright wasn’t paying attention — you see, her ear aids weren’t working. In between hearty laughs, and after Smith asks her friend if she wants one of hers, the late actress asks “It’s just what was the last thing said?”
“Are we going to go on working forever, Joan?,” Dench starts. But Smith isn’t letting it go, insisting, “And I said Jude gets all the parts first.” This prompts Joan to share a story about how her agent in America, while looking for roles that could fit the Enchanted April actress after losing her sight, told her: “Well, if you do want to come over again, we’ll look around for a nice little cameo that Judi Dench hasn’t got her paws on.” When Dench protested that the comment was rude, Plowright explained: “Well, in America, darling, that’s how they talk.”
As the title of the documentary suggests, all four were given a damehood by the late Queen Elizabeth II, but Plowright was the last to receive the honor in 2004. Before that, she was The Lady Olivier, thanks to her husband Laurence Olivier’s knighthood. Though she says in the film she’s “not sure about titles at all,” she confesses to accepting it because “everyone else had.”
We truly wish these actresses, of a generation when theater was king and the craft spoke louder than the paycheck, could go on working forever, even if it meant battling it out for roles. Unfortunately, only two women from that table remain with us. Both Dench and Atkins are now 90.
In 1993, Plowright became the second actress and one of only four as of 2024 to win two Golden Globes in one evening, for film (for Enchanted April in the Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture category) and for television (for the TV film Stalin in the same category). She was only nominated for an Oscar, for an Emmy, and for two BAFTAs. In 1961, 13 years after her stage debut in the U.K., she received a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in A Taste of Honey.
Plowright is survived by the three children she shared with Olivier — Tamsin, Richard and Julie-Kate, all actors, and several grandchildren. She was 95.
Published: Jan 17, 2025 10:13 am