A true love story was the one between Michael Williams, a revered English actor, and his wife, Judi Dench, whom many consider (myself included) the greatest actress in the world today.

Late married when both were nearly 40, they were 30 years together when he died. But he lived to see the wife he had supported so magnificently acclaimed throughout the world, and though never attaining the heights she did, was so respected as an actor that he was without work less than 18 months in 30 years.

But admired as he was for his craftsmanship, he was revered for his generosity and decency and known, though he did nothing to cause it, for the persistent romancing of his wife, sending her, wherever she was in the world, a single red rose every Friday.

She frequently called him “my spoony old thing.”

And it was their role on British television in a sit-com called “A Fine Romance” that characterized the real-life relationship between them.

A devout Roman Catholic in a land of high Anglicans and in work not noted for saints, Williams was the perfect match for his equally devout Quaker wife who eschewed competition and matched his generosity.

It was a fine romance…though she once threw a cup of hot tea at his head when he made her mad.

But the two of them, he said, “reveled in each other’s company.”  And in the midst of encompassing professional careers for both, they kept their parents with them till they died. Dame Judi came late to movies and was in her mid-60s when she won an Oscar for eight minutes onscreen as Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare In Love. She had been nominated the year before for her stunning portrayal of Queen Victoria in Mrs. Brown, and again after that in a fearless, peerless performance as British writer Iris Murdock suffering dementia and nearing death.

But age is simply not a factor in Dench’s roles or credibility.  In fact, my favorite story about her famous wit is the response she made to the persistent pleas of director Peter Hall who wanted her, at 52, to play Cleopatra — to which she replied her “Cleopatra” would be “a menopausal dwarf” — self-deprecating references to both her age and lack of height, which she disguises effortlessly in such elegant carriage.

American audiences know her mainly, though, as James Bond’s boss, “M”, a role with a sweet symmetry in the fact that a recent, real-life boss of Great Britain’s fabled spy service was a woman named Stella Rimington.

Incidentally, Dench did play Cleopatra — to rave reviews and the particular delight of her husband.

They were a perfect match.

And when, with cancer, he took a turn for the worse, she gracefully apologized to her last night’s audience on Broadway and went home to care for him.

Michael Williams died Jan. 12, 2001. Throughout England, the headlines read, “The End of A Fine Romance.”

And it was.

We should all be and have lovers like that.

Yolande Robbins is a community correspondent for The Vicksburg Post. You may email her at  yolanderobbins@fastmail.com