Dawn French
Dawn Roma French is a British actress, comedian, and writer. She is known for writing and starring in the BBC sketch comedy series French and Saunders with her friend and comedy partner Jennifer Saunders, and for starring in the BBC comedy series Murder Most Horrid and The Vicar of Dibley. She has been nominated for seven British Academy Television Awards and won a BAFTA Fellowship with Saunders in 2009.
Early life
Dawn Roma French was born in Holyhead on 11 October 1957, the daughter of English parents Felicity Roma and Denys Vernon French. Her parents were from Plymouth. She has an older brother named Gary. She was born in the Welsh town of Holyhead because her father, who was in the Royal Air Force, was stationed at nearby RAF Valley. He was later stationed at RAF Leconfield in the East Riding of Yorkshire, where Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother had tea at the family's home when French was three years old. RAF archive footage of this event was later included in French's comedy tour video Thirty Million Minutes.French was privately educated, which was partly funded by the RAF. When her father was stationed at RAF Faldingworth in Lincolnshire, she attended Caistor Grammar School for one year. She later attended boarding school at St Dunstan's Abbey in Plymouth, where she was a member of Downton house, then spent a year studying abroad at the Spence School in New York City on a debating scholarship she had won at school.
French has said that her confidence and belief in herself stem from her father, who told her how beautiful she was every day. She said, "He taught me to value myself. He told me that I was beautiful and the most precious thing in his life." He had a history of depression and made two suicide attempts, but managed to conceal his struggles from his children before eventually taking his own life when French was 19 years old.
In 1977, French began studying drama at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where she met her future comedy partner Jennifer Saunders. Both came from RAF backgrounds and had grown up on the same camps, and later discovered that they shared the same best friend despite never meeting each other. Saunders recalled that her first impression of French was as a "cocky little upstart", while French considered Saunders to be "snooty and aloof". They originally did not like each other as French wanted to become a drama teacher, with Saunders loathing the idea and thus disliking French for being enthusiastic and confident about it.
French and Saunders shared a flat while at college and were influenced to pursue comedy by their flatmates as part of their projects for college. After talking in depth for the first time, they became friends. While at college, French broke up with her fiancé, a former Royal Navy officer. After French and Saunders graduated from the Royal Central School, they decided to form a double act called the Menopause Sisters, which Saunders later described as cringeworthy. According to the manager of the club where they first performed, "They didn't seem to give a damn. There was no star quality about them at all."
Career
Television
1980s
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. Each episode presented a self-contained story and, in addition to French and Saunders, showcased Comic Strip performers Peter Richardson, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Robbie Coltrane and Adrian Edmondson. She acted in 27 of the 37 episodes and wrote two of them. One episode 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 1981 which featured sketches by French & Saunders. The album was released on Springtime!/Island Records in September 1981 and presented French and Jennifer Saunders to an audience outside London. In 1985, French starred with Saunders, Tracey Ullman, Ruby Wax and Joan Greenwood in Girls on Top, which portrayed four eccentric women sharing a flat in London.French has co-written and starred in her and Saunders' comedy series, French & Saunders, which debuted in 1987. On their show, the duo have spoofed many celebrities such as Madonna, Cher, Catherine Zeta-Jones and the Spice Girls. They have also parodied films such as The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. After 20 years being on television together, their sketch series A Bucket o' French & Saunders, began airing on 8 September 2007.
1990s
French and Saunders have also followed separate careers. During French's time starring in Murder Most Horrid, from 1991 to 1999, she played a different character each week, whether it was the murderer, victim, or both.French's biggest solo television role to date has been as the title figure in the long-running BBC comedy The Vicar of Dibley, which Richard Curtis created for her. The show began in 1994. She stars as Geraldine Granger, a vicar of a small fictional village called Dibley. An audience of 12.3 million watched the final full-length episode to see her character's marriage ceremony. She appeared on The Vicar of Dibley with Damian Lewis in a mini-episode made for Comic Relief in 2013. She was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Comedy Performance in the last episode of The Vicar of Dibley. Repeats of the show on BBC One still attract millions of viewers and it also retains a following amongst PBS viewers in the United States. Although the main series ended in 2007, the show has returned for numerous short special episodes since, the latest four of which aired in December 2020.
In 1995, she appeared as a talk-show host in a Comic Relief sketch called Dawn, written by Victoria Wood. The sketch also featured Wood herself, Celia Imrie, Lill Roughley, Anne Reid, Philip Lowrie, Robert Kingswell, Bryan Burdon, Duncan Preston, Jim Broadbent, and Lynda Bellingham.
2000s
In 2002, French appeared in the comedy/drama mini-series Ted and Alice. In the series, set in the Lake District, French played a tourist information officer who falls in love with an alien. She appeared once in the Saunders led sitcom Absolutely Fabulous as TV interviewer Kathy in 1992, a parody of Lorraine Kelly, she reprised that role for Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie in 2016 as a more established veteran journalist as Kelly is now. She also appeared in the BBC sitcom Wild West, with Catherine Tate, in which she played a lesbian living in Cornwall, more through lack of choice than any specific natural urge. This series did not meet with as much success as her earlier roles and it ended in 2004 after two years.French played a major role in Jam & Jerusalem as a woman called Rosie who has dissociative identity disorder and with it an alter ego called "Margaret". She co-starred alongside Sue Johnston, Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. She made a guest appearance in Little Britain as Vicky Pollard's mother. 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 2006, French appeared in Agatha Christie's Marple in the 2006 episode "Sleeping Murder". She appeared as Caroline Arless in the BBC television drama Lark Rise to Candleford in 2008. Talking about her role, she has stated, "I'm quite a vibrant character. She's quite extreme, in that she drinks too much, laughs too much and sings too much. But she loves her family very much; it's just that she goes over the top sometimes."
2010s
In late 2010, French starred in Roger & Val Have Just Got In with actor Alfred Molina, which aired for two series.French appeared in Little Crackers, short comedy films which were broadcast over Christmas in 2010.
French appeared as a special guest on Michael Bublé's Home For Christmas in December 2011. In July 2012, she was a judge in ITV's Superstar live shows. In March 2013, it was announced that French would replace Brian McFadden on the judging panel of Nine Network's Australia's Got Talent alongside Kyle Sandilands, Geri Halliwell and Timomatic who is the additional fourth judge. French departed the show after one series and was replaced by Kelly Osbourne.
From 2016 until 2019, French starred in three series of Delicious on Sky 1, co-starring as a talented cook who is having an affair with her celebrity chef ex-husband who has remarried and started a successful hotel business with his new wife in Cornwall.
2020s
In 2020, she appeared in the six-part series The Trouble with Maggie Cole alongside Mark Heap.In 2021, French appeared as a celebrity guest judge on the second series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK, where she judged the final five contestants, Lawrence Chaney, Bimini Bon-Boulash, Tayce, Ellie Diamond and A'Whora, on their comedy stand-up routines.