Dawn French

Boobpedia - Encyclopedia of big boobs
Revision as of 06:44, 3 April 2014 by KerkoveFan (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigationJump to search

Dawn French (born 11 October 1957) is a British comedian and actress best known as one half of the comic duo French & Saunders, the other half being Jennifer Saunders, and for the playing the title lead in The Vicar of Dibley.

Early years

French was born in Holyhead, Wales and was educated in Plymouth, and first came to public attention as a member of The Comic Strip, part of the alternative comedy scene in the early 1980s.

Career

Dawn French has starred in a successful television series French and Saunders in 1987. Her first post-Saunders project was Murder Most Horrid, a dark comedy satire of murder mysteries.

Her biggest solo television role to date has been as the title figure in the long running BBC comedy The Vicar of Dibley, created by Richard Curtis. Since finishing The Vicar of Dibley, she starred in the BBC sitcom Wild West, 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.

She 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.

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.

Awards

In 2001, both she and Saunders declined an OBE. In 2002, Dawn French appeared in the comedy/drama mini-series Ted and Alice. In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.

Away From The Stage

As a large woman, she 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 large 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!"

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, 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.

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- 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

Film and Television

  • "High Table" TV series (2007)
  • Coraline (filming) (2007)
  • "Dawn French's Girls Who Do Comedy" TV series (2006)
  • "Jam and Jerusalem" TV series (2006)
  • The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
  • "The Vicar of Dibley" TV series (1994-2006)
  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
  • "Wild West" TV series (2002-2004)
  • "Ted and Alice" TV show (2002)
  • "Let Them Eat Cake" TV show (1999)
  • "Sex & Chocolate" TV show (1997)
  • "Murder Most Horrid" TV series (1996)
  • "Absolutely Fabulous" TV series (1992)
  • "French and Saunders" TV series (1988)
  • Eat the Rich (1987)
  • "Girls On Top" TV series (1985-1986)
  • "The Young Ones" TV series (1982-84)
  • "The Comic Strip" TV series (1981-1993)

Other Works

  • Appears in "BBC: Serious About Comedy" TV commercial for BBC America (2000)
  • 1986: Plays a lab assistant in Kate Bush's science-fiction music video "Experiment IV."
  • Appeared in a business training video "The Balance Sheet Barrier" with John Cleese.
  • TV commercial for Terry's Chocolate Orange (2002-2003)
  • TV commercial for Terry's Segsations (2003)
  • Music video for Alison Moyet: "Whispering Your Name"
  • TV commercial for House of Fraser department stores.
  • (April 2006): Plays Bernice Clulow in "Smaller" play by Carmel Morgan (Lyric Theatre, London, England, UK).

References

External Links


The text in this article is based on the Wikipedia article "Dawn French" used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License or the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license. See Boobpedia's copyright notice.