Dame Judi Dench reveals she once put a dead rat through a neighbour's letterbox
Dame Judi Dench has admitted that she once put a dead rat through a neighbour’s letterbox.
The 91-year-old national treasure has a career spanning seven decades and has collected more awards than you can shake a stick at including an Oscar, six BAFTAs and a couple of Golden Globes.
But it turns out that before she became a beloved British star, Dame Judi was a bit of a naughty child and once put a dead rat through a neighbour’s letterbox as a prank.
She made the confession on a recent episode of BBC’s This Natural Life podcast, telling host Martha Kearney that she was put up to the stunt by her brothers Jeffery and Peter who were hoping to get revenge on the neighbour for keeping their cricket balls.
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“This is a terrible story,” she said.
“The boys [her brothers] used to play cricket in the garden, and they used to be always batting the balls over into the other gardens, and there was a lady called Miss Lazenby, and she never ever would throw the ball back, or give us the balls back.
“And once the boys found a dead rat in the barn, and they parcelled it up, and they said to me, ‘Judi, will you just go round and put this through Miss Lazenby’s door?’
“So I did go and squeeze it through Miss Lazenby’s door, Miss Lazenby was rather red about it, saying, ‘please give us our balls back’, we wrote this message, it was tied on the dead rat.”
When asked if she thought the dead rat might have encouraged poor Miss Lazenby to start passing back the balls, Dench said ‘probably not’.
Dench also admitted that the whole incident got them banned from playing cricket - so, overall, it probably wasn’t worth the hassle, but what a story to tell when you’re 91, eh?
Dame Judi made her professional acting debut on stage back in 1957 and has earned herself a reputation for being one of the greatest British actresses of all time.
As well as treading the boards in plays such as Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet, she also has an incredible TV and movie career, with roles in A Room with a View, Shakespeare in Love, Notes on a Scandal, and Belfast.
And of course, has appeared in eight James Bond movies playing M.
In 2023, Dench revealed she had macular degeneration, which leads to a gradual loss of eyesight.
Speaking to The Mirror at the time, she said: “I mean, I can't see on a film set anymore. And I can't see to read. So I can't see much,” she told the outlet.
"But, you know, you just deal with it. Get on.”
Despite her sight worsening, Dame Judi hasn’t retired; most recently, she voiced a talking fridge in The Magic Faraway Tree, which was released back in March.
As for her brothers, who put her up to the rat-in-the-letterbox prank, Jeffery also went into acting and became an accomplished stage actor best-known for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He passed away in 2014 aged 85.
Peter, on the other hand, opted for a career out of the limelight and became GP. He died in 2017 aged 91.
Topics: Celebrity
Claire Reid