Judi Dench was born in York, North Riding of Yorkshire, the daughter of Eleanora Olave, a native of Dublin, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor who met Judi's mother while studying medicine at Trinity College.

Dench was raised a Quaker and lived in Tyldesley, Greater Manchester. Notable relatives include her older brother, actor Jeffery Dench, and her niece, Emma Dench, a Roman historian previously at Birkbeck, University of London, and currently at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

When Dench was 13, she entered The Mount School, York. In 1971, Dench married British actor Michael Williams and they had their only child, Tara Cressida Williams (aka "Finty Williams"), on 24 September 1972. She has followed the family's theatrical tradition, becoming an accomplished actress in her own right.

Dench and her husband starred together in several stage productions, as well as separately, but then paired again to make television history with Bob Larbey's hit British sitcom, A Fine Romance. Michael Williams died from lung cancer in 2001, aged 65.

In Laurence Olivier's autobiography Confessions of an Actor (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982) he describes her as 'the scrumptious Judi Dench'.

Dench is a patron of The Leaveners, Friends School Saffron Walden and the Archway Theatre, Horley, UK. She became president of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London in 2006, taking over from Sir John Mills, and is also president of the Questors Theatre. In May 2006, she became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Dench is an Honorary Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. In 2000-2001 she received an Honorary DLitt from Durham University. On 24 June 2008, she was honoured by the University of St Andrews, receiving the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters (D.Litt) at the university's graduation ceremony.

Before starting her professional career, Judi Dench trained for the stage at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, and was involved in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in the 1950s. Most famously, she played the role of the Virgin Mary in the 1957 production, performed on a fixed stage in the Museum Gardens. In September 1957, she made her first professional stage appearance with the Old Vic Company, at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, as Ophelia in Hamlet, then her London debut in the same production at the Old Vic. She remained a member of the company for four seasons, 1957–1961, her roles including Katherine in Henry V in 1958 (which was also her New York debut) and as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in October 1960, directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli. During this period, she toured the United States and Canada, and appeared in Yugoslavia and at the Edinburgh Festival.

Dench's more recent film career has been extremely successful. She successfully garnered six Academy Award nominations in nine years for Mrs. Brown in 1997; her Oscar-winning turn as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love in 1998; for Chocolat in 2000; for the lead role of writer Iris Murdoch in Iris in 2001 (with Kate Winslet playing her as a younger woman); for Mrs Henderson Presents (a romanticised history of the Windmill Theatre) in 2005; and for 2006's Notes on a Scandal, a film for which she received critical acclaim, including Golden Globe, Academy Award, BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild nominations. At the end of 2006 Dench worked pro bono to record information announcements for Tramlink.

In 2007 the BBC issued The Judi Dench Collection, DVDs of eight television dramas: Talking to a Stranger quartet, Keep an Eye on Amélie, The Cherry Orchard, Going Gently, Ghosts, Make and Break, Can You Hear Me Thinking? and Absolute Hell.

Dench, as Miss Matty Jenkins, co-stars with Eileen Atkins, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton and Francesca Annis, in the BBC One five-part series Cranford. The series began transmission in the UK in November 2007, and on the BBC's US producing partner station WGBH (PBS Boston) in spring 2008.

Dench narrated the updated Walt Disney World Epcot attraction Spaceship Earth. In February 2008, she was named as the first official patron of the York Youth Mysteries 2008, a project to allow young people to explore the York Mystery Plays through dance, film-making and circus. This culminated on 21 June with a day of city centre performances in York. She worked on the 22nd Bond adventure Quantum Of Solace and reprised her role as M.

She is also interested in horse racing and in partnership with her chauffeur Bryan Agar owns a four-year-old horse "Smokey Oakey". She will return to the West End from 13 March—23 May 2009 in Yukio Mishima's Madame De Sade, directed by Michael Grandage as part of the Donmar season at Wyndham's Theatre.

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