Actress Judi Dench Diagnosed With Severe Eye Condition

According to the Washington Post, actress Judi Dench said that she has been diagnosed with an eye condition called macular degeneration. The condition can cause blindness. The actress said that she already had bad vision and had difficulty reading scripts.

"The 77-year-old told the Daily Mirror that she was relying on friends and family to keep her up to speed with her lines."

During the interview Dench said, “The most distressing thing is in a restaurant in the evening I can’t see the person I’m having dinner with.”

Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with The Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth. During the next two decades, she established herself as one of the most significant British theatre performers, working for the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company. In television, she achieved success during this period, in the series A Fine Romance from 1981 until 1984 and in 1992 began a continuing role in the television romantic comedy series As Time Goes By.

Her film appearances were infrequent until she was cast as M in GoldenEye (1995), a role she has played in each James Bond film since. She received several notable film awards for her role as Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown (1997), and has since been acclaimed for her work in such films as Shakespeare in Love (1998), Chocolat (2000), Iris (2001), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) and Notes on a Scandal (2006), and the television production The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2001).

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