Yesterday, Dame Judi Dench, the British actress perhaps best known as M from the James Bond series, granted an interview to the Mirror where she spoke of being diagnosed with macular degeneration and admitted she even struggles to read her scripts or make out the faces of people standing right in front of her. At one point she even told her interviewer, "I can’t see your face at all now, but I can see your outline." The actress, currently working on her seventh James Bond pic Skyfall, set to release later this year, has learned to cope though. "You get used to it," she says, mentioning how her daughter often helps her memorize her lines, adding that, "I’ve got lenses and glasses and things and very bright light helps. I can do a crossword if it’s bright sunshine but if a cloud comes out the next minute I can’t see anything." So for the sake of Judi Dench, we think cloudy days should be phased out.

http://www.vulture.com/2012/02/dame-judi-dench-reveals-she-is-going-blind.html

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTxa-5k3x2ZifFkmG0cf02eRPysb0Sd-9omidR0top1lqoIcM9r

Oh my God, that's just awful. She seems to be taking it in stride. She is a class act with or without her vision.

No offense to Dame Judi but is anyone else hearing the KISS song?

Forever a vision to me since I first saw her on TV...

Dame Judi Dench has been diagnosed with macular degeneration, an eye condition, but she assures that it will not lead to blindness.

In an interview published in the Daily Mirror Saturday, the 77-year-old Oscar winner, whose mother had macular degeneration as well, says that she needs help memorizing lines because of the condition, which is characterized by damage to the retina.


"I can't read scripts anymore because of the trouble with my eyes," she says. "And so somebody comes in and reads them to me, like telling me a story. It's usually my daughter or my agent or a friend and actually I like that, because I sit there and imagine the story in my mind. ... The most distressing thing is in a restaurant in the evening, I can't see the person I'm having dinner with."

Dench, who has undergone treatment, downplayed the severity on Monday after numerous outlets reported that she was going blind.

"In response to the numerous articles in the media concerning my eye condition — macular degeneration — I do not wish for this to be overblown," she said in a statement. "This condition is something that thousands and thousands of people all over the world are having to contend with, and it's something that I have learnt to cope with and adapt to — and it will not lead to blindness."

http://www.tvguide.com/News/Judi-Dench-Blind-Eye-Condition-1043593.aspx?rss=breakingnews&partnerid=popeater&profileid=breaking