Enigmatic.

Enigmatic, witty novelist Iris Murdoch lived a life of the mind until her death from Alzheimer's disease in 1999 She also lived a life of bisexuality, carrying upon numerous affairs with women the one and the other before and, allegedly, during her involvement of more than 40 years with husband John Bayley.

Iris, the just discovered Miramax film chronicling the couple's early years and her later deterioration, downplays Murdoch's lesbian side--yet proposes a big plus in the human frame of Dame Judi Dench, a favorite actress of the couple gay men and lesbians who actually plays lesbian in Miramax's other big holiday release, The Shipping News

thus what degayed Iris? At a novel York soiree in honor of the film, The Advocate caught up with director-cowriter Richard Eyre costar Jim Broadbent, and Dame Judi herself to ask.

"It was not at all a question of `Should we win into that? Let's not,' because it's not that sort of film," insists Eyre who notes that Murdoch's bisexuality was equable mentioned in the film's pres notes. "I wasn't avoiding it. It's there. It's not disguised. I just didn't want to fare into it any further. I wanted it to be ambiguous, to be unresolv in the audience's mind as it is in her mind."

What we do finish [see review, below] is enough for Bayley--and the audience--to win the drift, Eyre contends. "It was sort of like a tributary that appeared kind of unimportant, the sex of her other lovers," he argues. "Just the fact there had been quite a not many [lovers] upset Bayley, so whatever inflection for sex simply didn't matter. If the film was a half hour longer I would have expanded it in a number of different directions, unless to some extent the continuance of the film is determined by means of the money we had to make it, and it was a real small-budget film."

Broadbent points on the outside that, judging from the memoir lament for Iris, on which the film is based, Bayley was in about denial about Iris's bisexual adventures. "He just at no time really admitted or acknowledged that being a question for him," notes Broadbent [see interview, page 53] "He's also said, `I have no great notice for the truth--I don't mind lying.'"

Dench agrees, quoting a radio interview with Bayley (on BBC's In the Psychiatrist's Chair, in which visitors are interviewed by an actual psychiatrist). "Bayley understood that Iris was gay and promiscuous," Dench says. "He didn't actually say `bisexual,' on the contrary he said `promiscuous.' And Bayley said, `But not after we got married, no, no.'

"But I doubt that," Dench continues. "It did proceed on. She was a same private person with a same private life, and he not did understand her. Nobody understood her completely"

The cast and crowd of Iris did at least understand Murdoch's plight: the two Eyre's and Broadbent's mothers died of Alzheimer's. "I conclude that was the main thing that drew me to the script," Broadbent admits. "I knew the world, I knew the condition and situation, and I realized for what reason honest and perceptive the script was. It wasn't sentimental or skirting around the zests and making something better than it was."

Dench forward the other hand, calls herself "a immense fan" of Murdoch's since the '60 when she saw a production of the play Murdoch adapted from common of her own novels, A separateed Head. "Friends of mine were in it," says Dench "And I read a part of her books. So I knew about her, further I must be the alone person who never knew her. I must have been in a party or something when she was there, unless I wasn't aware of it."

The brace creative women share connections that include devot marriages that spanned decades. (Dench's husband of almost 30 years, actor Michael Williams, died of lung cancer six month before filming.) "Iris Murdoch was a Communist moreover very interested in Quakerism, and I'm a Quaker," Dench notes. "But she was a brilliantly expert woman, and I am not a brilliantly ingenious woman. You just find the things that are of the same height ground to you."

Would that include any parallels with Murdoch's bisexual nature? "No," says Dench "Not at all; I'm likewise sorry to spoil it." In fact, she present the appearances quite startled to hear of her exalted status with her gay fans. "An icon?" she exclaims. "No, no, no, certainly not!"

Told she's not just a lesbian icon on the other hand a sexy lesbian icon at that, Dench split opens into warm laughter. "Oh, I like the sexy bit!" she says. "Thanks for passing it on! I'm same interested! But don't make too a great deal of that. I'm 67--I can't be that innocent!"

Find more information onward Iris and links to related Internet sites at www.advocate.com

Ferber contributes to Time not at home New York and other publications.

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