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Dawn French

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Dawn Roma French[1] (born 11 October 1957) is a BAFTA Award-nominated British comedian and actress best known for appearing in her comedy sketch show French & Saunders along with her comedy partner Jennifer Saunders, and for playing the lead role in The Vicar of Dibley as Geraldine Granger.

Dawn French
Born
Dawn Roma French
SpouseLenny Henry

Biography

Early life

French was born in Holyhead, Anglesey, Wales and educated at a boarding school in Plymouth, Devon, England. Her father, Denys, was a member of the Royal Air Force, and the Force partly funded her private education.[2] She later won a debating scholarship where she studied in New York[2] and then went on to attend London's Central School of Speech and Drama, aspiring to become a drama teacher.[3] It was there that she met her comedy partner Jennifer Saunders.[3] Both French and Saunders would eventually come to public attention as members of The Comic Strip, part of the alternative comedy scene in the early 1980s.

Television

French has had an extensive career on television, debuting on Channel 4's The Comic Strip Presents series in an episode called Five Go Mad in Dorset in 1982.[3] Each episode presented a self-contained story distinct from other episodes, and showcased Comic Strip performers Peter Richardson, Rik Mayall, and Robbie Coltrane and Adrian Edmondson, in addition to Saunders and French. One week featured a parody of spaghetti westerns, and another, a black and white film about a hopelessly goofy boy. Some of French's first exposure to a wider audience occurred when comedy producer Martin Lewis recorded a Comic Strip record album in Spring 1981, which featured skits by French & Saunders. The album was released on Springtime!/Island Records in September 1981. The album presented Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders to an audience outside London. In 1985, French starred in Girls On Top with Saunders, Tracey Ullman and Ruby Wax which portrayed four eccentric women sharing a flat in London.[3]

She has also co-written and starred in the successful comedy series French & Saunders with Saunders, which debuted in 1987 and still airs sporadically to this day.[3] On their show, the duo have spoofed many celebrities such as Madonna, Cher and Catherine Zeta-Jones and they have also parodied films in the series such as The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

File:DawnFrench CatherineZetaJones.JPG
Dawn French as Catherine Zeta-Jones on French & Saunders

French and Saunders have also followed separate careers with varying success. During French's time starring in Murder Most Horrid from 1991 to 1999, she would play a different character each week, whether it was the murderer, victim or even both.[3] She also appeared in the BBC sitcom Wild West along with Catherine Tate,[4] in which she plays a woman living in Cornwall who is a lesbian more through lack of choice than any specific natural urge. This series was not met with as much success as her earlier role, ending after two years in 2004. Prior to that, in 2002, French appeared in the comedy/drama mini-series Ted and Alice.

However, French's biggest solo television role to date has been as the title figure in the long running and popular BBC comedy The Vicar of Dibley, created by Richard Curtis. She starred as Geraldine Granger, a vicar of a small village called Dribley. In the final full-length episode of the well-known series, 12.3 million people watched the episode, to see her character marry Harry Kennedy.[5] Her last appearance on The Vicar of Dibley was with Sting and Trudie Styler in a special mini episode made for Comic Relief in 2007. She was nominated for a BAFTA for "best comedy performance" in last episode of The Vicar of Dibley.

More recently, in 2006, French played a major role in Jam & Jerusalem as a woman called Rosie who had an alter ego. She co-starred alongside Sue Johnston, Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. French also made a guest appearance in Little Britain as Vicky Pollard's mother Shelly Pollard, who was seen defending her daughter in the dock in Thailand as she was charged with drug smuggling, and was sentenced to 20 years, 10 more than her daughter. French also appeared in a special version of Little Britain Live which featured several celebrity guests and was shown by the BBC as part of Comic Relief. She played the part of a fat lesbian barmaid in a sketch with Daffyd Thomas.[6]

With The Vicar of Dibley now officially ending, French is readying for a new television comedy in 2007, in which she will star, High Table. French will play the head in an Oxbridge college.[7] It has recently been reported that French has sold her autobiography for £1.5 million, due to be released sometime in 2008.[8]

Film, theatre and advertising

In films, French has played The Fat Lady in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban[9], replacing the less well-known actress, Elizabeth Spriggs, who played the character in the first film of the series. French's husband, Lenny Henry, provided the voice of the Shrunken Head in the same film, though they did not share any screen time together. In 2005 French provided the voice for the character Mrs. Beaver in Disney and Walden Media's film adaptation of C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

She has also taken to roles in the theatre. French has previously played roles in plays such as A Midsummer Night's Dream, My Brilliant Divorce and Smaller, which is a play about a schoolteacher caring for her disabled mother. January 2007 saw French performing as the Duchesse de Crackentorp in an opera in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. The opera production was The Daughter of the Regiment (La fille du régiment) by Gaetano Donizetti, which depicted the life of a baby adopted by an army regiment. French soprano Natalie Dessay and the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez took the roles which required singing.[10]

French is also known for her larger figure and for her efforts to promote the notion that "big" can be beautiful. As a result, she has her own line of clothes, Sixteen47, taking its name from the statistic that 47% of the British female population are at least a size 16. The line aims to produce clothes designed to look flattering on larger women. Due to her size and admitted chocoholism, she was chosen as the face of Terry's Chocolate Orange, using the slogan "It's not Terry's, it's mine", which has recently been replaced with "Don't tap it, whack it!"

Recognition

In 2001, French was offered an OBE. However, both she and Saunders declined the offer to receive the OBE.[11] In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.

Personal life

French met her future husband Lenny Henry on the alternative comedy circuit. The couple married on 20 October, 1984, and have an adopted daughter, Billie. The couple have a home in Spencers Wood at Shinfield, near Reading, in Berkshire but have put it on the market in light of their purchase of a home close to Dawn's mother in Fowey, Cornwall.[12]

Filmography

File:Dawn grimreaper murdermosthorrid.jpg
French as the blond haired, pink-suited grim reaper in her black comedy, Murder Most Horrid

Bibliography

  • Beneath the Cassock: Vicar of Dibley by Joy Carroll
  • Cruising by Beryl Cook (with a foreword by Dawn French)
  • A Feast of French and Saunders by Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French
  • Dawn French: The Biography by Alison Bowyer
  • Frigid Women by Sue Riches, Victoria Riches and Dawn French
  • Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie (audio cassette version; part-read by Dawn French)
  • Dawn French: Level 1 by Gwen Berwick and Sydney Thorne
  • The Vicar of Dibley- complete series scripts, by Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer

References

  1. ^ Dawn French: I just had a lot of fun — manchestereveningnews.co.uk
  2. ^ a b Dawn French bio — DawnFrenchOnline
  3. ^ a b c d e f Dawn French — screenonline.org.uk
  4. ^ Wild West — bbc.co.uk
  5. ^ Dibley's Farewell is ratings hit — bbc.co.uk
  6. ^ Model Moss joins Little Britain — news.bbc.co.uk
  7. ^ It's Don French — chortle.co.uk
  8. ^ Dawn French's £1.5m memoirs — timesonline.co.uk
  9. ^ Dawn French takes Potter role — news.bbc.co.uk
  10. ^ Dawn French to make opera debut — news.bbc.co.uk
  11. ^ It is an honour to stand among the refuseniks — independent.co.uk
  12. ^ Dawn & Lenny's £2.4m mansion — sundaymirror.co.uk
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