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I can only wish Dame Judy the best of luck in trying to find the appropriate treatment, if there is such a thing.
She is an amazing actress and would love to see a lot more of her in coming years. But apart from these merely selfish motives I wish her all the best for her health regarding her private life! Hopefully there is something the doctors can do...
My first thought too.
If she's unable to read her own scripts this is indeed very sad and an awful way to bring to an end an amazing career.
I thankfully, don't know anyone in this situation, it must be heartbreaking and I wish Dame Judi and anyone else who has to suffer through this the very best.
I'm still in shock really, this news is horrid.
If you read the interview that article links to, from the Mirror, you'll read she hopes recent treatment has stopped the progressive decline. Though I'm not sure of the success rate of these things, we can hope and prey for the best.
She ends by saying she doesn't plan to stop working, so I hold out hope we may see her in Bond 24 and beyond as well as many other films.
Here gives a few details on the condition: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/2012/02/18/james-bond-star-dame-judi-dench-says-eye-disease-means-she-can-t-read-lines-86908-23755377/
It affects the eye's nerves
Lyndon Da Cruz, consultant ophthalmic surgeon
AGE-RELATED macular degeneration is a chronic inflammatory disease that affects the macular – a small but vital part of the retina.
The macular has all the high-quality reading nerves and is right in the centre of the patient’s vision.
AMD can lead to total blindness but this is very rare. It doesn’t affect the periphery, so people don’t end up losing their vision totally.
Sufferers can lose the high-quality central vision, which is very disabling for most people because they can’t read, see faces or watch TV.
AMD is by far the commonest cause of sight loss in the West. The number of sufferers increases significantly after the age of 60 – at which point up to a third of the population will have some form of the disease.
This could mean less big roles for Dench though, which as we've seen in the 60's to '80's work very well. There may be little reason to drop Dench, if the worst happens.
She seemed a lovely person on Graham Norton the other day.
I love Dench as M and would love to see her again in 24. But on the other hand, then she would be around 80, which is an age at that probably no one would do such a stressfull job as head of MI6 in real life. I don't say she could not do it once more, but I think it is very likely that SF will be her last Bond.
If that is the case, I do hope that SF is a worthy goodbye for her! I would miss her...
Terrible thing to happen to anyone and let's hope Dench is given the right treatment.
Good God, that's awful. I was really unaware that things like this could be so affecting though I suppose nothing should surprise me.
I've also woken up blind and though it only lasted for around 10 minutes it was a very scary thing. I've also been sick and then immediately been blind for some unknown reason, though I was feeling rather ill, the worst I had for years. I just these aren't telling signs for my future...
Very sad news that she is losing her eyesight.
Yeah. She'd had a cataract operation previously that had gone wrong and resulted in her going blind.
She's said she would like to continue to work for as long as she is able to, so hopefully, if everyting goes well Dench will be able to appear in many more films yet.
I wouldn't take Dench not being in any more films at the moment as a sign of career being over.
Well, that just makes it even worse. I'm sorry to hear that @BAIN123.
That's ok. I wasn't THAT close to her but it was still a sad thing.
Indeed, that's the cause of the famous anecdote of how Stanley Kubrick came to work on Bond, because Renoir couldn't see far enough to adequately light the huge 007 Stage newly built for Ken Adam's Liparus set, so he called on Kubrick's help for the job.
Anyhoo, back on topic, yup, it's sad news this, but hopefully things'll work out all right for Judi's eyes. She's getting on and this sort of thing happens - I mean, I'm in my early thirties now and occasionally experience neck and back aches I never got as a 'younger man' (mind, I suspect they come from falling asleep in odd positions now and again... :p )
I wish her well in her fight against the condition!
I'm afraid you may just have contradicted yourself.
In a way yes? But surely you can understand what i am trying to say though?
Yes, I can understand but Dench continuing her career by no means says this will be her last Bond film. In fact, hopefully the opposite.
I'm pleased that Dench has cleared this up. Hopefully things won't spin much further out of control now. This statement at least makes everything seem a little more normal.
Sorry to hear Ms Dench has been having some difficulties lately, you never can tell the actual severity of these things sometimes but it appears it may not have been as shocking news as one may have taken in and I wish her all the best for the future. What could be worse than losing one's eyesight, it's one of those god given things we take for granted, but stories like these do bring things quickly into perspective