Judi and Me

There’s something about actors of your own age, especially when you both start young and get to be over 70. As a student in 1966 i never dreamed that the smart, tough young woman who leapt off the screen in Talking to a Stranger would end up as an eminent dame, but there you go. It’s been a pleasure to watch most of what she does, and i wish her well in a vague sort of way - which made it all the more poignant to read about her vanishing sight. she’s had to give up driving, because she’s a threat to other people, though the loss of independence is heartbreaking - as it was for my dad, and will be for me, when the time comes. she has to get other people to read her lines to her when she learns them, and that can’t be easy. And as she gets older she has to re-evaluate the past, as we all do. To recognise that Weinstein and spacey seem to have committed serious crimes - but still wanting to hold on to the quality of work that they made possible. It’s true what they say, Judi, life’s a bitch, and then you die. but it’s good to do it in such company.