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Dawn French
Promotional Photograph of Dawn French
Born	October 11, 1957 Holyhead, Wales, UK
Spouse(s)	Lenny Henry
Notable roles	Various in French & Saunders (1987–2005) Geraldine Granger in The Vicar of Dibley (1994–2007)

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

Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Television 3 Film and advertising 4 Recognition 5 Personal life 6 Filmography 7 Bibliography 8 References 9 External links

Dawn French was born in Holyhead, Anglesey, Wales and educated in Plymouth, Devon, England. She first came to public attention as a member of The Comic Strip, part of the alternative comedy scene in the early 1980s. A successful television series French and Saunders followed in 1987. Her first post-Saunders project was Murder Most Horrid, a dark comedy satire of murder mysteries.

French has had an extensive career on television. Along with Jennifer Saunders, she was a founding and ongoing member of the comedy troupe The Comic Strip, along with many well-known comedy performers including Peter Richardson, Rik Mayall, and Robbie Coltrane and Adrian Edmondson. The Comic Strip was a completely different short film each week. 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.

She has also co-written with Saunders, the successful comedy series French & Saunders, which still airs sporadically to this day. On their show, they duo have spoofed many celebrities such as Madonna, Cher and Catherine Zeta-Jones. 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.

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 Dibley. In the final episode of the well-known series, 12.3 million people watched the episode, to see her character marry Harry Kennedy.^[1] Her last appearance on The Vicar of Dibley was with Sting in a special episode made for Comic Relief in 2007.

French has also starred in the BBC sitcom Wild West along with Catherine Tate,^[2] 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.

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 lesbian barmaid in a sketch with Daffyd Thomas. In January 2007 French played the role of the Duchesse de Crackentorp in La fille du régiment by Gaetano Donizetti at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.

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.^[3]

In her film career, French has played The Fat Lady in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, replacing the less well-known actress, Elizabeth Spriggs, who had played the character in the first film of the series. Her 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.

French is known for her efforts to promote the notion that big can be beautiful. As part of this she has her own line of clothes, Sixteen 47, deriving its name from the statistic that 47% of the British female population are at least a size 16. It aims to produce clothes that larger women can look beautiful in. For 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!"

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

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, Reading, Berkshire but have put it on the market in light of their purchase of a home close to Dawn's mother in Fowey, Cornwall ^[4]

• The Comic Strip TV series/made-for-TV movies (1981)
• The Young Ones TV series (1982-1984)
• Girls On Top (1985-1986)
• Eat the Rich (1987)
• French and Saunders TV series (1988)
• Absolutely Fabulous TV series (1992)
• Murder Most Horrid TV series (1991-1999)
• Sex & Chocolate TV show (1997)
• Let Them Eat Cake TV show (1999)
• Ted and Alice TV show (2002)
• Wild West (2002-2004)
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
• The Vicar of Dibley TV series (1994-2007)
• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
• Marple: Sleeping Murder TV series (2005)
• Jam and Jerusalem TV series (2006)
• Dawn French's Girls Who Do Comedy 3-part TV series (2006)
• Little Britain Abroad TV series (2006)
• Coraline (filming) (2007)
• High Table TV series (2007)
• The Meaning of Life TV show (2007)

• 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- partially 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

1. ^ Ratings hit, bbc.co.uk
2. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/wildwest
3. ^ http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2006/07/06/4313/it's_don_french
4. ^ "DAWN & LENNY'S £2.4M MANSION", Sunday Mirror, 2006-11-05. Retrieved on 2006-12-04.

• Dawn French at the Internet Movie Database
• French and Saunders
• British Film Institute bio
• Dawn French's Plus Size Celebrity Profile