Dames of Classic Drama at the BBC

Whatever the state of the economy

there's one thing Britain can export to the world.

Not our cars, clothes, bands or bankers...

but our actors.

When it comes to women of a certain age,

in theatre and film a handful of British stars dominate...

..acting royalty,

honoured as Dames of the British Empire.

Their careers began on the stage...

..but in the 1960 and '70s they brought their talents to the small screen,

just as British television drama itself came of age.

The BBC became the National Theatre of the airwaves,

uniting new forms of drama with new styles of acting...

Now, can we have the door open again, please?

Don't go.

..and beaming the performances of a new generation into

the homes of millions of viewers.

Hidden in the BBC archive are little known moments of their early careers...

Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours.

..and rare interviews with the stars themselves.

Nobody wanted me.

The dress rehearsal was such a shock.

They reveal a unique era when our great theatre actors

brought their talents to a new art form

and gave us some of their most exceptional performances.

Flatterer.

-Leave him alone!

-If you had any children, if you knew.

You want to stop swearing, Donald Duck?

# You, you do

# Something to me

# Something that simply mystifies me. #

It's rare for actors to step straight into the limelight,

but Judi Dench was a star from the start.

Her first professional role was in 1957 with the Old Vic theatre company

as Ophelia in Hamlet.

Dickie said to me, "Michael Benthall wants to see you at the Old Vic."

Well, I had a friend who had left Central then and was walking on at the Vic.

I thought, "How marvellous." This is what I'd love to do.

My ambition was to walk on at the Vic.

And so I went along and saw him.

He said, "I want you to learn this speech from Hamlet."

I did an audition and Michael said,

"I'm going to take the most enormous gamble.

"I would like you to play Ophelia." And I just burst into tears.

I'm afraid I made a spectacle of myself.

And he said, "I don't want you to tell anyone, though."

In fact, I didn't tell anyone for about six weeks.

It was agony.

Three years later, Dench arrives in the BBC archive

in Shakespeare's Henry V. She's 24 and plays Princess Katherine of France.

Even in a funny hat and speaking in broken English, she's mesmerising.

What sayest thou, my fair flower-de-luce?

La plus belle Katharine du monde,

mon tres cher et devin deesse?

Your majestee, ave fausse French enough to deceive de most

sage demoiselle dat is en France.

The performance is part of the BBC series An Age Of Kings,

a pioneering production staging all of Shakespeare's history plays

from Richard II through Henry IV, V and VI to Richard III.

15 episodes, the most ambitious project of its kind.

The whole thing went out live which meant being on the BBC

wasn't all that different from acting on the stage.

Rehearsals took 30 weeks and many of the technical staff

came straight from the theatre, as did the producer Peter Dews.

With a total of 600 speaking parts, it's not surprising that

another of our acting Dames also makes her first appearance here.

Eileen Atkins was born in the same year as Judi Dench,

and, like Dench, she had joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1957.

Her role as Joan Of Arc

is one of the most iconic performances of the series.

Stay, stay thy hands! Thou art an Amazon.

And fightest with the sword of Deborah.

Christ's mother helps me, else I were too weak.

Whoe'er helps thee, 'tis thou that must help me.

Impatiently I burn with thy desire.

My heart and hands thou hast at once subdu'd.

Excellent, Pucelle, if thy name be so, let me thy servant...

..and not sovereign be.

'Tis the French Dauphin sueth to thee thus.

I must not yield to any rites of love,

for my profession's sacred from above.

An Age Of Kings was often conventional in its staging,

but Joan Of Arc's downfall has some particularly striking imagery.

The regent conquers, and the Frenchmen fly.

Now, help, ye charming spells and periapts

and ye choice spirits that admonish me

and give me signs of future accidents.

You speedy helpers that are substitutes under

the lordly monarch of the north. Appear.

Faced with defeat, Joan summons demonic helpers who appear as dancers

superimposed on her eyeballs.

Quite a technical feat in a live broadcast.

Bringing the masterpieces of theatre to the small screen was, in 1960,

BBC drama's greatest aspiration.

Audiences loved to be transported from the comfort of their own homes

to a night at the theatre.

What is the matter?

I've never seen such disorder in any studio.

Shakespeare was a staple, Shaw, Priestley, Coward,

but some more radical playwrights proved popular

such as Bertolt Brecht

with the sort of polemical stuff that would impress the critics.

This is Mother Courage And Her Children...

..starring one of the leading actresses of the older generation

Dame Flora Robson...

..perhaps not quite as proletarian as the role required.

What an earth are you doing in a whore's hat?!

Take it off this minute. Are you crazy?

With the enemy coming.

Do you want them to find you and ruin you?

And she has the boots on too!

Whore of Babylon. Take them off!

Oh, God, Chaplain, help get me these boots off.

-Curtain one.

-151.

In the early '60s, the BBC had a new rapport with the stage

after years of hostility from theatre producers.

The Corporation worked particularly closely with the recently created

Royal Shakespeare Company,

often exactly reproducing their stage productions in the BBC studios.

This 1962 performance of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard

came straight from the RSC.

Judi Dench, at the age of 26,

makes a surprisingly convincing teenage Anya.

And she plays against another Dame of the older generation, Peggy Ashcroft.

Come, my darling. Come away from here.

We will plant a new orchid.

More beautiful than this one.

You will see. You will understand.

And your heart will be filled with happiness

like the sun in the evening and then you will smile again.

Come with me, my darling.

Come with me.

# Here I go again. #

The BBC did well to get Peggy Ashcroft, she hated TV.

She said, "I loathe television. I won't have it in my house.

"It adulterates the theatre."

If one can act in the theatre and spend most of one's time acting in the theatre,

then I prefer it and it's also the thing I'm used to doing.

It is the magic of an audience that makes a play live

quite freshly every night.

It's something that happens between the people who sit out there

and us on the stage and you can't, I think, replace that,

though you, of course, give a splendid mechanical reproduction

of what is being rehearsed.

But that other element can't take place,

and that is what, I think, is what the theatre is and why it's important

and why one loves the theatre and wants to do plays in the theatre.

Like many of her contemporaries,

Ashcroft was more comfortable with the heightened drama of radio.

Here she is as Cleopatra.

The most infectious pestilence upon thee.

Good madam, patience.

Horrible villain, hence

or I'll spurn thine eyes like balls before me!

I'll unhair thy head!

Thou shalt be whipped with wire and stewed in brine.

Even if she's not too happy to take direction...

Peggy, dear, you have to frighten him more on that.

Later on. But still...

Why, there's more gold.

But, sirrah, mark, we use. To say the dead are well.

Bring it to that.

The gold I give thee will I melt

and pour down thy ill-uttering throat.

The younger generation of Shakespearian actors

had fewer reservations about television.

When the BBC ventured out to film the Royal Shakespeare Company's

production of The Comedy Of Errors being performed at the Aldwych Theatre,

they provided the BBC's first record of a new star

in the making, Diana Rigg.

She appears,

talking just a little too fast, as Adriana,

who spends the play fretting about whether her husband is unfaithful.

Neither my husband nor the slave returned, that in such haste I sent to seek his master!

Surely, Luciana, it is two o'clock.

Rigg trained at RADA and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1959.

As soon as her five year contract was up, she donned her leather catsuit

and became Emma Peel in The Avengers.

She claims it was her fighting skills which won her the role.

Out of the RSC too came Vanessa Redgrave.

Not officially a Dame,

but widely reported to have turned down the title in 1999.

Her first fleeting appearance on television was in fact

modelling in 1957,

an experience she later reprised in this rather fetching onesie,

being photographed by Norman Parkinson.

You know, it's very upsetting for me that you are such a good actress.

-Because you've been such a marvellous model.

-Hm, it was coming.

But her debut on TV as an actor is in the RSC's As You Like It as Rosalind.

Here, dressed as a boy, and playing opposite Patrick Allen as Orlando.

I would cure you.

If you would but call...

..me Rosalind...

..and come every day to my cote and woo me.

Redgrave's Rosalind was hailed as a ground-breaking performance -

instinctual, emotional,

defying the entrenched traditions of Shakespearean acting.

Critic Bernard Levin described her in the Daily Express as,

"A creature of fire and light,

"her voice a golden gate opening on lapis lazuli hinges.

"Her body a supple reed rippling on the breeze of her love.

"This was not acting at all, but living, breathing, loving."

Little wonder he later asked her out.

It certainly seems that Shakespeare came very naturally to Redgrave,

at least according to her.

I've read a lot of Elizabethan literature and poems

and it's always been a time which is very vivid, sensually,

physically, visually for me.

I feel as if I've lived in it to a certain extent and in Elizabethan prose,

some of those Elizabethan stories, short stories, for instance,

I guess I read so much that since most is written in prose

it didn't seem removed from me in any way.

Any strange antique terms of expression just seemed

like a fun way of talking like the kind of sort of way we talk now.

Since she saw herself as an Elizabethan, it's a little surprising

to find Redgrave in a pinny in her next BBC appearance

as Maggie in 1964.

By the time I done Maggie,

having seen myself do As You Like It, it's all quietened down a lot.

It's nothing to do with the fact that it's modern or Shakespeare,

shouldn't be any difference at all.

I cut down a lot of layers of just sheer movement,

facial movement, stressing all the words and so on.

I was still popping my eyes though, like that...

They start whizzing round like they was whiskers.

Andromeda and Scorpio.

'So lesson from Maggie, it sounds terribly silly,'

but is never pop your eyes like that.

Don't give me that. We only met a few seconds.

It was a rare foray for Redgrave into kitchen sink drama.

-You're different, do you know what?

-Yeah, course I am.

You're actually interesting to talk to.

Oh, you only say that because it's true.

I think you're a dish.

But the trend in television for gritty,

socially-conscious drama was going strong

and other Shakespearian leading ladies joined the party.

The innovative police drama Z-Cars which ran from 1962

was hungry for new young talent.

Its storyline centred on issues like poverty, mental illness

and addiction,

demanding a new style of acting for the camera.

Hello. Police.

When Eileen Atkins appeared in the series in 1964,

she made an effortless transition from Joan Of Arc to adulteress wife.

Thought you were police, did she?

It's like being in a cage.

Don't know what you mean.

You must do.

Why did you come here with me and leave Georgie Porgie sat at home?

Oh, stop talking like that. We agreed not to talk about it.

Nice voice, that copper, Irish.

I'm mad.

It's you.

Eh, I don't suppose George will be taking his mum away again, will he?

Oh, you can't come to our place again, people will talk.

Oh, yeah, talk.

Eileen had real working class credentials.

She hailed from a council estate in North London.

Studying at the Guildhall,

she worked hard at getting rid of all traces of her accent.

I had just learned a perfect Celia Johnson accent

when, as I left drama school, the big thing that happened was that

all the northern stuff was in, so I very quickly persuaded everybody

that I came from the Midlands. I used to be very vague.

Sort of north of Birmingham.

This command of accents helped to win Atkins a role

in the controversial 1965 drama Fable.

Written by John Hopkins at the

height of South African apartheid.

It imagined a Britain under a brutal

black-dominated authoritarian regime.

Atkins plays Joan whose life falls apart after her husband Len

is carted off to a labour camp in Scotland.

Here, she is begging for help from the wife of a leading

middle class intellectual.

-I don't know what I can do.

-He can't help you.

Oh, my children.

I want my children back.

He can't... Listen. He can't' help you. No.

I haven't seen them for three months.

-You must go away.

-It costs so much to get to them.

-I can't afford it.

-Leave him alone.

If you had any children, if you knew.

Judi Dench also excelled at this new gritty drama.

Returning to the BBC as a delinquent teenager in Z-Cars.

-Ever since this world be...

-Shut it.

Well, you're not long on manners, are you?

What's your name?

Marlon Brando.

The episode was again written by John Hopkins

and he bore Dench in mind when he began writing more ambitious scripts

for the newly created BBC Two.

The channel allowed writers like Hopkins,

a new breed specialising in television,

space to experiment,

particularly in the regular slot called Theatre 625, referring to

BBC Two's use of 625 lines, the high definition of the day.

Hopkins created Talking To A Stranger

and it proved an extraordinary

vehicle for Dench's talents.

Over four plays, the events of one tragic weekend are told from

the point of view of each member

of an ordinary suburban family.

Judi plays Terry, a rebellious single girl.

Her mother is played by Margery Mason.

Are you pregnant?

No.

-You've put on a lot of weight.

-Yes.

-You seen a doctor?

-Not recently.

-Have you got a doctor?

-Not at the moment.

Last time I went out with him he suggested a few things

I didn't much fancy, so I haven't been out with him again.

Terry...

why don't you stay the night and go and see Dr Parker in the morning?

No, thanks. If I want a doctor I'll find one of my own.

Thanks all the same.

Dr Parker knows you better than anybody.

-Oh, I wouldn't say that!

-Go and see him.

-I don't want to see him.

-Well, go and see someone!

-I think I'll go and watch the telly.

-If you haven't seen a doctor,

-how can you...

-Because I have to know about things like this. It may

come as a big surprise to you. "Good gracious, doctor, is that mine?"

But I have to know because, not having the luxury of a husband,

I might have to do something about it.

Now, can we have the door open again, please?

PHONE RINGS

Talking To A Stranger was described as the first authentic

masterpiece written directly for television.

It was a commercial and critical success -

screened three times in 18 months.

Dench also found roles on the big screen,

although she never forgot an especially unpleasant

early screen test in America.

I went up about a film once before I had ever made a film.

And I went into a room and there were five big men there.

They offered me a seat and nobody said anything.

I said, "This time I thought I won't ask any questions."

So I didn't. This man looked at me for a long time.

And then he took a cigar out of his mouth and said, "Ms Dench,

"you have every single thing wrong with your face."

And I got up and I walked out of the room.

And that was my first year of acting.

And it died hard, I can tell you.

Now she stuck with British productions,

notably the atmospheric drama Four In The Morning,

where her scenes with on-screen husband Norman Rodway

were improvised.

Anthony Simmons and John Morris came and saw me

and they were making this film.

They made already a kind of

documentary about the River Thames.

And they'd introduced the police finding a girl

drowned in the Thames. And they did all that.

And it was so successful they wanted to introduce more.

It was frightening to do, but we improvised it and rehearsed it

for three weeks in different flats.

We were both very inhibited at the beginning,

when in actual fact we were enjoying it.

I'd never have believed that I would enjoy it so much,

but I loved doing the film.

There are only certain things that can be done in this way.

You can't do a great big epic,

can't have 100 people improvising in the morning.

It would be a terrible old mess.

But with something like this which was an experiment really.

Dench's powerful performance as a beleaguered new mother won her a Bafta.

I suppose we would live the rest of our lives like this.

You're going to go on resenting me.

But I don't resent you.

It's just that you can... You can get out of these four walls.

You can see your friends. You can go for a drink. You can break away.

I'm not prepared to cook your meals and look after your baby

and just be here when you feel like it.

Oh, come on, darling, that's your part of the bargain.

I keep mine...

I'm sorry, but that's the way society happens to be.

I'm not talking about society, I'm talking about me.

I give you the toast of Mayfair, Fraulein Sally Bowles.

What next after all this grit?

In 1968, at the age of 33,

Dench decided to do something completely different.

# Hush up

# Don't tell Mama

# Shush up

# Don't tell Mama

# Don't tell Mama Whatever you do. #

She took the role of Sally Bowles in the first London stage

production of Cabaret.

# You bet I would keep it

# I would never tell on you

# I'm breaking every promise that I gave her

# So won't you kindly do a girl a great big favour?

# And please, my sweet patater, keep this from the Mater

# Though my dance is not against the law

# You can tell my papa, that's all right

# Cos he comes in here every night

# But don't tell Mama what you saw! #

I've always wanted to do a musical.

And I want to have a great orchestra and everything,

a bit of dancing, a bit of singing, a bit of acting.

I long for that.

Cos that's a really different thing.

In the late '60s, musicals were suddenly in vogue.

As Oliver! took the cinema by storm,

Vanessa Redgrave broke into song in the little known Red And Blue.

And Diana Rigg almost, but not quite,

took the lead in western musical Paint Your Wagon.

Meanwhile, the BBC went behind the scenes of Oh! What A Lovely War

to see another of our Dames enlisting the troops - Maggie Smith.

Maggie Smith plays the musical singer who entices young men

from the audience to come up on stage and join the army.

I think it's very sinister.

Very unattractive if you know what's behind it.

The film was Richard Attenborough's directorial debut

after a successful acting career of his own.

# The army and the navy need attention

# The outlook isn't healthy, you'll admit

# But I have a perfect dream of a new recruiting scheme

# Which I think is absolutely it

# If only other girls would do as I do... #

Maggie Smith excelled at comic creations like this one.

Described as raucous and insidious, she is both seductive and terrifying.

# I've an army and a navy of my own

# On Sunday, I walk out with a soldier

# Monday, I'm taken by a tar

# Tuesday, I'm out with a baby boy scout

# On Wednesday, a hussar. #

She arrives in the BBC archive already full formed as an actress,

with many film and television roles under her belt,

and a fixture at the National Theatre

where she played Desdemona to Olivier's Othello.

Her very first appearance for the BBC was thought lost,

but has recently been rediscovered.

She plays Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing

in a studio version of Franco Zeffirelli's

National Theatre production.

Smith is at her acerbic best,

bantering with her real-life husband Robert Stephens as Benedict.

I thank God and my cold blood

I am of your humour for that.

I'd rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

God, keep your ladyship still in that mind!

So some gentlemen or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.

Scratching could not make it worse an 'twere such a face as yours were.

Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.

A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer.

But keep your way, i' God's name, I have done.

You always end with a jade's trick, I know you of old.

How do you go about playing a part like that?

The first thing that happened to me with Beatrice, I was thrown by

Zeffirelli who said at the first rehearsal that he saw Beatrice

as an albino,

which I found a little throwing at first.

And I found out later on as the production grew

that he wanted everybody to be very dark

and Beatrice to be the odd one out as she was the one girl who

hadn't got married and was very strange because of her wit

and stood out in this little Sicilian family.

And he gave me this sort of extraordinary blonde wig

and all the clothes were odd.

I mean, his whole conception of...

of the play was completely throwing, I think, to anybody playing Beatrice

or indeed Benedict, because it was awfully difficult to fit in.

But you looked marvellous and I thought you were very good in it.

Did you not think you were as good as you might have been?

I think it took time.

I mean, I think you can't better...

'Clive Goodwin, interviewing, reminds us that no-one in the '60s

'let a spot of filming get in the way of a good smoke.'

I mean, this is what they're always saying about Beatrice throughout,

she's always with a quick answer, quick...

And it was so visual and, in the middle of all that,

it was terribly difficult to be verbally funny.

The dress rehearsal was...

such a shock, you know, you went on and you suddenly found everything

happening all over and you just thought,

"I don't know how I can just stand and talk."

I long very much to play the coffee boy, in actual fact.

But Smith was about to take a more satisfying role,

again alongside Robert Stephens...

..which would make her internationally famous

as the extraordinary Miss Jean Brodie.

# ..with thy blessing... #

Can anyone tell me who is the greatest Italian painter?

Leonardo da Vinci, Miss Brodie.

That is incorrect, Jenny.

The answer is Giotto - he is my favourite.

Observe, little girls, Stanley Baldwin

who got in as Prime Minister and got out again ere long.

Our headmistress, Miss MacKay, retains him on the walls

because she believes in the slogan "Safety first."

But safety does not come first.

Goodness, truth and beauty come first.

Brodie, idealistic, self-deceiving and darkly comic, was a rare thing -

a starring role for a woman over 30.

The first to play her on the stage was Vanessa Redgrave in 1966,

here playing the same opening scene as Maggie Smith.

-Who is the greatest Italian painter?

-Leonardo da Vinci, Miss Brodie!

No, the answer is Giotto, he is my favourite.

Observe, little girls.

This is Stanley Baldwin, who got in as Prime Minister

and got out again ere long.

Our headmistress Miss Mackay retains him on the wall

because she believes in the slogan "Safety first."

Safety does not come first.

Goodness, truth and beauty come first.

Redgrave later recounted her struggles with the role

in which hair and clothing loom rather large.

How I eventually found her was finding out what

she wanted to be like.

We thought, "Well, she longs to be like Garbo, Pavlova, Thorndike."

And so one made her dress that, dress in...

..colours and in materials and with designs that were indeed

a successful, to a certain extent, realisation of her dreams.

And we got all the way to the dress parade, you know,

four days from going out on tour.

And it wasn't until I was in those damn clothes on the stage

that I suddenly knew that what was vital was that Brodie, in fact,

is and looks like a dried-up spinster

and that that is what makes her ironic and pathetic,

that she is not, for any single minute of her breathing life,

she is not what she wants to be.

That is the contradiction.

Little girls, I've frequently told you,

and my summer in Italy has convinced me,

that I am in my prime.

One's prime is the moment one is born for... Take this down.

One's prime is elusive.

You little girls must be on the alert to recognise your prime

at whatever moment it may occur.

You must then live it to the full.

"Come Autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and grey

"and sooth me with tidings of nature's decay."

Robert Burns.

The 1969 film took a more direct approach to the role.

Smith is more alluring,

more flamboyant, than Redgrave's deluded spinster.

One's prime brings one insight into these things.

One's prime is the moment one is born for.

You little girls must be on the alert to recognise your prime

at whatever time it may occur.

And live it to the full.

"Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness..."

Redgrave got rave reviews as Jean Brodie,

but disliked the character and firmly turned down the film version,

which ultimately won Maggie Smith an Oscar.

Oh, I was just very, very surprised.

I didn't think I had a hope at all.

-I'm very pleased that I have.

-What about the Oscar as an award?

Do you think it really matters to an actress of your fame already?

Well, I'm not particularly famous in the film world anyway and

I think it obviously must matter because why would everybody be here?

But, I mean, they go mad in Hollywood and California about it.

Yes, yeah, I believe they do.

I've not been to the awards before at any time,

so I don't really know.

I mean, you just regard it as another pot on the mantelpiece,

-do you?

-Well, I think it's...

No, it's always lovely to get a sort of prize.

What do you do with the statuette?

Do you put it on the sideboard at home or something?

-No, mine is actually holding a door open.

-Really?

-Yes.

No, it's very friendly, actually. It's extremely useful for it.

Vanessa Redgrave had also been making her mark on '60s film.

Her portrayal of Isadora Duncan in Isadora was Oscar-nominated

and she took Best Actress at Cannes.

She was the first dancer who didn't just take music

as an excuse for her to have something to dance to,

but sought to dance for the music

and this was the most revolutionary change of all.

MUSIC: Symphony No 7 - Vivace by Ludwig van Beethoven

Isadora also allowed Redgrave to indulge her first love, dancing.

Well, I wanted to dance, I've dreamed to be a dancer

for a long time. That's what I wanted to do,

that's what I always really wanted to do.

Goodness knows why.

Something about the combination of music and movement...

..fills me with...

something.

-But you...

-And I think I would've been quite a good dancer.

Probably very good. Anyway, I'm far too big, as you can...

can see.

'Time for another fag, I think.'

Can I have a light? Thank you.

Vanessa's move from theatre to film caused the newspapers to dub her

"the sexiest socialist" and "Shakespearean turned sexpot".

Serious actresses with a sexy side were all the rage.

Diana Rigg became the new Bond girl Tracy,

the only one to get a wedding dress...of sorts...

..and cast because the director felt a real actress was needed alongside

the new Bond, George Lazenby, who had no acting experience at all.

These seasoned actresses had learned over time to balance

the sexy and serious sides of their public image.

But the new young sensation to emerge from the Shakespearean stage

had a more difficult task on her hands.

# The naughty lady of Shady Lane has hit the town like a bomb... #

From the moment Helen Mirren appeared in the theatre,

critics seem to have just one thing on their minds.

She first drew attention as a sultry Cleopatra in 1965.

Charmian...

where think'st thou he is now?

Stands he or sits he?

'Those appreciative of her performances seemed almost obsessed

'with her sex appeal.'

Helen's performance as Cleopatra was remarkable by any standard.

It wasn't simply a question of the young girl making a big stab

at a difficult part,

she gave the part something which English actors

for generations have failed to do and that really is to

get inside the sheer sexuality, the built-in sexuality, of the woman.

# So delightful to hold, the naughty lady of Shady Lane

# She's delectable, quite respectable... #

Almost immediately, the offers began to arrive from film studios.

In 1967, Mirren joined the Royal Shakespeare Company

and also made an extraordinary first appearance on film,

sexing up some rubber gloves as a satire on consumerism in

Herostratus, co-produced by the BBC.

Anybody who really wants me will have to buy me.

Orators orange rubber gloves!

Ah!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mirren didn't get carried away with the movies.

There was actually...there was one point I remember very early on

when there was a choice, direct choice,

between doing a film with a very good part in it and going back to

the RSC to do... I think it was to do Troilus and Cressida.

Very, very early on in my career.

And I decided to go to the RSC to do Troilus and Cressida.

I was so thrilled by the idea of doing Cressida.

And Susan George did the part and subsequently went on to be

the sort of film star that Susan George is and...

You don't regret that decision?

No, I don't... No, I don't.

No, of course, you can't regret things like that.

And I hope that...

you know, what I've done in the theatre will stand me in stead

for the rest of my life.

Playing Cressida in 1968 at the age of 23,

Mirren was the youngest actress at the RSC.

..to defend my belly, upon my wit to defend my wiles,

upon my secrecy to defend my honesty,

my mask to defend my beauty.

The film Mirren turned down was Straw Dogs,

infamous for its graphic rape scene.

A certain type of role did seem to be coming her way.

She accepted the lead in Age Of Consent

in which a young girl models for and eventually seduces a jaded artist,

played by James Mason.

I'm a painter. Know what a model is?

-Like that?

-No!

-HE CHUCKLES

-Like this?

-No!

-Like this?

-No.

HE LAUGHS

Godfrey!

-Oh!

-SHE LAUGHS

Mirren may have excelled at seduction, but as the 1970s dawned,

sex and nudity seemed to be on everyone's minds.

Even Michael Aspel's.

What would you not turn your talents to?

I don't know.

I mean...

Give me a start.

Do you mean, would I romp around nude or would I be in

-one of those kinds of films?

-For example.

Well, for example, no.

I mean, I don't think I would.

One interviewer made an art of the impertinent question -

Michael Parkinson.

Can I talk to you about something else which has

briefly affected your life? About nudity on the stage?

Oh, come on!

I think it's a very fascinating area.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

I mean, you've taken your clothes off on stage.

-I've taken my clothes off on stage.

-Yes.

-Do you have to talk yourself into it?

-Yes.

In fact, when I was doing Abelard and Heloise, I think it

was in The Provinces in Newcastle...

It was from a post office worker.

I know, because it was written on a telegram form and he said,

"I don't know why you bother.

"My girlfriend's tits are much larger than yours."

AUDIENCE SCREAMS WITH LAUGHTER

AUDIENCE APPLAUDS

But Parkinson saved his worst for Helen Mirren, for whom,

in any case, all this was a bit of a sore point.

Do you think... I mean, you are, in quotes, a serious actress.

In quotes? What do you mean, in quotes?

-Well, you know...

-How dare you?

It's the kind of cliche people say about serious actresses...

-Oh, yes, I see.

-..as opposed to an unserious actress.

But do you find, in fact, that what could best be described as

your equipment in fact hinders you perhaps in that pursuit?

And later in the interview, just as their relationship seems to thaw...

out comes THAT question again.

Let's talk about nudity, not clothes.

Let's talk about the fact that you, in fact, have taken your clothes off

on screen and partly disrobed on stage as well.

Do you have any sort of feeling

of embarrassment about it when you do it?

There are lots of reasons for feeling uncomfortable

about taking your clothes off in a movie.

And one of them is that, basically, whatever the director says,

basically you know that it's being done for commercial reasons.

And it's...

male chauvinist kind of...

You know that phrase, I'm sure.

-I've heard it before.

-You've heard of before, right.

Fortunately, 1970s television had its own solution...

somewhere the actors could be fully and luxuriously clothed -

costume drama.

Helen Mirren's first appearance on the BBC was in Cousin Bette,

a five-part series based on a novel by Balzac.

So, I've decided to be my own physician.

'She plays Valerie, who seduces and torments a series of men.'

You can begin by telling me all the latest gossip!

I would rather tell you how adorable you are

and how much I've missed you.

Oh!

Never mind.

Your Valerie has missed you, too.

But soon, we will be all we were to one another.

SHE GROWLS PLAYFULLY

And in 1972, Vanessa Redgrave makes a rare appearance acting on TV

as author Katherine Mansfield in a six-part series on her life,

here playing, almost wordlessly, opposite Jeremy Brett.

I must go.

Yes.

'How you hurt me!

'You've failed.

'Go.

'Why didn't you insist that I stay?

'Don't go.

'I could easily have telephoned.

'Easily!'

SHE SNIFFS

-Goodbye.

-Au revoir.

Single plays were also given the lavish costume treatment,

bringing us Judi Dench in glorious colour in this dubious French farce,

Keep An Eye On Amelie.

UPBEAT MUSIC

Well, who is it at the door?

It is a lady who particularly wishes to speak to you in private

and she looks respectable.

Bring her in, little brother!

And Maggie Smith sweeps in, typically formidable,

in Shaw's The Millionairess.

It's her last appearance on British television for over a decade.

Smith disappeared off to Canada and concentrated on stage and film.

But the '70s costume drama extravaganza continued,

spilling over into comedy.

An invitation to appear on the Morecambe And Wise Christmas Show

was a sure sign you were a big star.

Thank you very much. Now, ladies and gentlemen, with great pleasure,

I'd like to introduce to you the very beautiful, the very talented,

the very well known, the very famous Miss...er...

..Vanessa Redgrave!

AUDIENCE APPLAUDS

'Redgrave demonstrates the merits of playing it straight

-'as the Emperor's Josephine.'

-He's crying again.

I wish he wouldn't.

The tears roll down his legs and makes them shrink.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

And I do love him!

When he kisses me,

I can feel his heart beating against my kneecaps.

I would like to introduce to you the very charming,

the very talented Miss Diana Rigg!

'And of course, no-one ever tired of the comedy to be had

'from putting a tall lady next to Ernie Wise.'

Diana...

-this is a very proud moment.

-Oh, what a lovely thing to say!

I meant, for you.

Riggs not one for understatement in her interpretation of Nell Gwynn.

# How could you believe me when I said I loved you

# When you know I've been a liar all my life? #

'Ah, the '70s!'

By the late 1970s, our generation of actors had become established stars,

reaching acting maturity, but experimenting with new directions...

and the BBC was there to document the progress,

observing as these stars of film and television renewed

their commitment to the theatre.

In 1978, Vanessa Redgrave returned to the stage

after several years' absence and an Oscar win

and was observed by the BBC rehearsing Ibsen's

The Lady From The Sea with Graham Crowden.

Then tell me the whole truth.

'That's director Michael Elliott, by the way, not a stalker.'

Take as long as you like.

She shows a low-key style

learnt from a decade acting in TV and film.

The sea...

Storms and calms, dark nights at sea.

Do you not think it's a little stark

if we stay all the way through into that there?

I expect it actually is, but I don't feel stark.

The thing is, I'm feeling that from this point,

it's him that's the one that's moving about and agitated

and that I am terribly agitated,

but it's...it's all, you know, I'm on course now.

Eileen Atkins put theatre first.

In 1977, we found her touring the UK with the Prospect Theatre Company.

And appearing once more as Joan of Arc in St Joan,

with that famous northern accent back in service.

No, you soldiers don't know how to use your big guns.

-You think you can win battles with great noise and smoke.

-True.

Half the time the artillery is more trouble than it's worth.

Aye, lad, but you can't fight stone walls with horses.

You need guns, and much bigger guns too.

The thing about Prospect is there aren't that many

places in England at the moment

where you can really muscle yourself in on the big classics.

And you do need, as an actor,

you need to play the big classics to become a decent stage actor.

You've got to play the big parts.

The eternal quest for interesting female leads led in many directions.

Helen Mirren cast off the Shakespearean sex kitten image

to play the lead singer of a failing rock band

in David Hare's radical musical play Teeth 'N' Smiles.

# Check your mirror

# And you overtake the truck... #

It's got a lot of swear words in it.

It's got a lot of very loud music in it.

On the first public preview,

quite a lot of people walked out quite early on in the play

when the first music takes place because they found it too loud.

# ..About you! #

What makes it a good female part?

It's tough. It's got balls.

-That's female?

-Yes, that's as female as it is male, absolutely.

It was a moment when BBC drama was also experimenting.

Dennis Potter's seminal Blue Remembered Hills

where adults play seven-year-olds to explore the cruelty of childhood

was another opportunity for Mirren to shine.

Well, who do you want to be, then, Aud?

The nurse, with the little scissors.

That's a good un'! Then you can see to my finger! I mean, my thumb.

-When I've had a bit of tea.

-What's the matter with your thumb?

-I cut the bugger off, didn't I?

-Just a minute, then.

You want to stop swearing, Donald Duck.

Angela, don't say that, you promised!

Let me see your thumb.

The female stars of this generation

turned their hands to almost every genre of acting.

And television in particular offered a place to try new things.

Diana Rigg got her own comedy sketch show on the BBC, Three Piece Suite.

Here, a lonely hearts assignation goes amiss

after the wrong man picks up Time In magazine.

The man in question is Don Henderson.

-What can I get you?

-Coffee, please.

SHE COUGHS POLITELY

CUTLERY FALLS ON FLOOR

APPLAUSE

The 1970s was a difficult era to be an actress approaching 40.

But these stars were constantly on the move.

I'm not too chic to do this, that or the other. I'm really not.

And it's not a question, necessarily, of economics either.

It's just relish. I love working.

Television drama did offer new roles for older women,

as Judi Dench found in Pinter's Langrishe, Go Down -

cast as a spinster courted, uncomfortably,

by a German student played by Jeremy Irons.

I long for you.

SHE GASPS

Please!

At the same time, she thrived at the RSC, creating a fragile,

vulnerable Lady Macbeth in Trevor Nunn's acclaimed production.

Here's the smell of the blood.

Still!

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten...

this...

little...

..hand.

ANGUISHED CRY

I've never wanted to be thought of as one kind of actress.

I don't want to have just

a particular kind of form of being thought of. I don't like that.

Dench's generation of actors began in the theatre

and the stage has remained the bedrock of their careers.

But it's their versatility that marks them out.

Coming into their own in the 1960s and '70s,

their innovative acting styles

proved perfectly suited to a pioneering age of television drama.

TV nurtured them,

it preserved some of their greatest performances for posterity

and it helped to make them household names.

In 1988, Judi Dench was made a Dame of the British Empire

for her services to the performing arts.

MUSIC: There Is Nothing Like A Dame

The others soon followed.

Dame Maggie Smith in 1990.

Diana Rigg was honoured in '94.

In 1999, Vanessa Redgrave was widely reported to have turned down a DBE.

But Eileen Atkins accepted in 2001.

And Dame Helen Mirren arrived in 2003...

..royal approval for acting careers that have brought honour to Britain

for 50 years and continue to do so today.

# There is nothing like a dame

# Nothing in the world

# There is nothing you can name

# That is anything like a dame

# There ain't a thing that's wrong with any man here

# That can't be cured by putting him near

# A girlie, womanly, female

# Feminine dame! #