Oct 11, 1957

Holyhead, Wales

Dawn French is a Welsh comedian and actress best known as one half of the comic duo French & Saunders, the other half being Jennifer Saunders of Absolutely Fabulous fame.
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French 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. Here she met her future husband Lenny Henry, with whom she has an adopted daughter. A successful television series French and Saunders followed in 1987. Her fi... ... (read more...) rst 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. 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.