Biography

Jeffery Danny Dench (29 April 1928 - 25 March 2014) was an English actor, best known for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was the older brother of actress Judi Dench.

Jeffery Dench was born in Tyldesley, Manchester to Eleanora Olave (née Jones), a native of Dublin, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a physician who met his future wife while studying medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. Jeff lived in Tyldesley with his brother Peter; later the family moved to York where his sister, Judith, was born.

Jeffery Dench was born in Tyldesley, Manchester to Eleanora Olave (née Jones), a native of Dublin, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a physician who met his future wife while studying medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. Jeff lived in Tyldesley with his brother Peter; later the family moved to York where his sister, Judith, was born.

Dench attended St Peter's, York, where he began acting with the role of Cleopatra in George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra.

He spent his national service at an army theatre in Catterick before attending the Central School of Speech and Drama. It was here that he met Betty, his first wife, who was working as a speech therapist. He moved to Clifford Chambers and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963, where he worked for many years.

With his wife Betty, Dench had three daughters: Sarah, a teacher who lives in Brailes; Clare, who lives in Shiplake; and Emma, a Roman historian previously at Birkbeck, University of London, and at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Betty died from a heart attack on 11 January 2002. Dench then married Ann Curtis, a costume designer for the RSC and a longtime family friend. They lived in Stratford-upon-Avon and in 2012 he became the President of Stratford-upon-Avon Choral Society.

On 27 March 2014 it was announced that Dench had died in England, UK two days earlier.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

Served in Dundee Rep 1959-1960 with the likes of Michael Culver, Gawn Grainger, Ann Way, Nicol Williamson, Bruce Boa and Edward Fox.