Felicity Kendal
Encyclopedia
Felicity Ann Kendal, CBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (born 25 September 1946) is an English actor known for her television and stage work.

Born in 1946, Kendal spent much of her childhood in India, where her father managed a touring repertory
Repertory
Repertory or rep, also called stock in the United States, is a term used in Western theatre and opera.A repertory theatre can be a theatre in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation or rotation...

 company. First appearing on stage at the age of nine months, Kendal appeared in her first film, Shakespeare Wallah
Shakespeare Wallah
Shakespeare Wallah is a 1965 Merchant Ivory Productions film. The story and screenplay are by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Madhur Jaffrey won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival for her performance...

, in 1965. Kendal began playing Barbara Good in The Good Life, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 sitcom
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

 in 1975. This made Kendal a household name. Later sitcoms where she was the lead did not achieve the popularity of The Good Life. In 2003, Kendal first played Rosemary Boxer in Rosemary & Thyme
Rosemary & Thyme
Rosemary & Thyme is a British television mystery series that starred Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris as gardening detectives Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme. The show began on ITV in 2003, and the third series ended in August 2007...

, a murder mystery
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...

 drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 that aired for three series ending in 2006.

Early life and career

Felicity Kendal was born in Olton
Olton
Olton is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in the West Midlands, England. In the 13th century the Lords of the Manor moved their seat and formed a new settlement, in the junction of two major roads, that village has now grown into a big town called Solihull...

, Warwickshire
Warwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...

 (now West Midlands
West Midlands (county)
The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...

), England, in 1946, and is the younger daughter of Geoffrey
Geoffrey Kendal
Geoffrey Kendal was an English actor-manager.Born Richard Geoffrey Bragg in Kendal, Westmorland, he took the name of his place of birth as his surname. He married the actress Laura Liddell...

 and Laura Liddell. Her sister was Jennifer Kendal
Jennifer Kendal
Jennifer Kapoor - born Jennifer Kendal - was a British actress who married Shashi Kapoor of the Kapoor family.-Childhood:Jennifer Kendal was born in Southport, England, but spent much of her youth in India...

. Her father was an English actor-manager who made his living leading a repertory company on tours of India after the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. They would perform Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

 before royalty one day, and in rough rural villages the next where audiences included many schoolchildren. Her father had adopted his birthplace of Kendal
Kendal
Kendal, anciently known as Kirkby in Kendal or Kirkby Kendal, is a market town and civil parish within the South Lakeland District of Cumbria, England...

, (then Westmorland
Westmorland
Westmorland is an area of North West England and one of the 39 historic counties of England. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974, after which the entirety of the county was absorbed into the new county of Cumbria.-Early history:...

 now Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...

), as his stage name, his original surname being Bragg. Felicity Kendal was educated at six convents in India.

Kendal made her stage debut aged nine months, when she was carried on stage as a changeling boy in A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...

. Later she started her career proper at the age of 19 and starred in the Merchant Ivory
Merchant Ivory Productions
Merchant Ivory Productions is a film company founded in 1961 by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory. Their films were for the most part produced by the former, directed by the latter, and scripted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, with the noted exception of a few films. The films were often...

 film, Shakespeare Wallah
Shakespeare Wallah
Shakespeare Wallah is a 1965 Merchant Ivory Productions film. The story and screenplay are by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Madhur Jaffrey won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival for her performance...

(1965), loosely based on her family's real-life experiences. At 21, Kendal returned to Britain against her father's wishes, where she found that her film appearance was not a passport to immediate success. She made her London stage debut in Minor Murder (1967), and went on to star in a number of well regarded plays.

Career breakthrough

In 1975 she got her big break on television with the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 sitcom
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

 The Good Life, in which Kendal and Richard Briers
Richard Briers
Richard David Briers, CBE is an English actor whose career has encompassed theatre, television, film and radio.He first came to prominence as George Starling in Marriage Lines in the 1960s, but it was in the following decade when he played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom The Good Life that he became a...

 played Tom and Barbara Good, a middle-class couple who decide to quit the rat-race and become self-sufficient, much to the consternation of their snooty, but well-meaning neighbours, played by Penelope Keith
Penelope Keith
Penelope Anne Constance Keith, CBE, DL is an English actress.Having started her television career in the 1950s, Penelope Keith became a household name in the United Kingdom in the 1970s when she played Margo Leadbetter in the sitcom The Good Life...

 and Paul Eddington
Paul Eddington
Paul Eddington CBE was an English actor best known for his appearances in popular television sitcoms of the 1970s and 80s: The Good Life, Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.-Early life:...

. When the series ended in 1978, she starred in several other BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 sitcoms, including Solo
Solo (TV series)
Solo is a British sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1981 to 1982. Starring Felicity Kendal, Solo was written by Carla Lane, a writer well known for having previously written the sitcom Butterflies....

, The Mistress and Honey for Tea
Honey for Tea
Honey for Tea is a British sitcom that aired on BBC1 in 1994. Starring Felicity Kendal, it was written by Michael Aitkens. The series was poorly received at the time, receiving a particularly scathing review from Victor Lewis-Smith in the London Evening Standard.-Cast:*Felicity Kendal - Nancy...

, but none were as successful.

Kendal's stage career blossomed during the 1980s and 1990s when she formed a close professional association with Sir Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...

, starring in the first productions of many of his plays, including The Real Thing
The Real Thing (play)
The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....

(1982), Hapgood
Hapgood
Hapgood is a play by Tom Stoppard, first produced in 1988. It is mainly about espionage, focusing on a British female spymaster and her juggling of career and motherhood...

(1988), Arcadia
Arcadia (play)
Arcadia is a 1993 play by Tom Stoppard concerning the relationship between past and present and between order and disorder and the certainty of knowledge...

(1993), and Indian Ink
Indian Ink (play)
Indian Ink is a 1995 play by Tom Stoppard , based on his 1991 radio play In the Native State. Indian Ink had its first performance at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, and opened at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on February 27, 1995. The production was directed by Peter Wood and designed by Carl...

(1995). In 2002 Kendal starred in Charlotte Jones's play Humble Boy
Humble Boy
Humble Boy is a 2001 English play by Charlotte Jones. The play was presented in association with Matthew Byam Shaw and Anna Mackmin, and was first performed on the Cottesloe stage of the Royal National Theatre on August 9, 2001. [1]-Background:...

when it transferred from the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...

 to the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

. In 2006 she starred in the West End play Amy's View
Amy's View
Amy's View was written by British playwright David Hare, and originally premiered in London at the Royal National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre on June 13, 1997. It was directed by Richard Eyre and starred Judi Dench, Ronald Pickup and Samantha Bond in the title role. It was then performed on...

by David Hare
David Hare (dramatist)
Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...

.

Her most recent television work was the ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 murder mystery
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...

 series Rosemary & Thyme
Rosemary & Thyme
Rosemary & Thyme is a British television mystery series that starred Felicity Kendal and Pam Ferris as gardening detectives Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme. The show began on ITV in 2003, and the third series ended in August 2007...

, in which she played gardener Rosemary Boxer, who, together with colleague and ex-policewoman
Police officer
A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...

 Laura Thyme (Pam Ferris
Pam Ferris
Pamela Ann "Pam" Ferris is a German-born Welsh actress. She is best known for her starring roles on television as Ma Larkin in The Darling Buds of May, as Laura Thyme in Rosemary & Thyme, and for playing Miss Trunchbull in the movie Matilda...

), solved mysteries near their various workplaces as landscape gardeners. The series ran from 2003 to 2006.

Recent years

In 2008 she made a guest appearance in Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

alongside David Tennant
David Tennant
David Tennant is a Scottish actor. In addition to his work in theatre, including a widely praised Hamlet, Tennant is best known for his role as the tenth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, along with the title role in the 2005 TV serial Casanova and as Barty Crouch, Jr...

 and Catherine Tate
Catherine Tate
Catherine Tate is an English actress, writer, and comedian. She has won numerous awards for her work on the sketch comedy series The Catherine Tate Show as well as being nominated for an International Emmy Award and four BAFTA Awards...

 in the episode "The Unicorn and the Wasp
The Unicorn and the Wasp
"The Unicorn and the Wasp" is the 7th episode in the revised fourth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was aired by BBC One on 17 May 2008 at 19:00. Perhaps due to its later broadcast, it received an overnight audience rating of 7.7 million, making it the...

". Also in 2008 she appeared in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 in a revival of Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...

's play The Vortex
The Vortex
The Vortex is a play by the English writer and actor Noël Coward. The story focuses on sexual vanity and drug abuse among the upper classes. The play was Coward's first great commercial success....

.

In 2009 she appeared in the play The Last Cigarette (by Simon Gray
Simon Gray
Simon James Holliday Gray, CBE , was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years...

) and in 2010 in Mrs Warren's Profession (by Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

). Both played at the Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre, located in Chichester, England, was designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, and opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Martin in 1962. Subsequently the smaller and more intimate Minerva Theatre was built nearby in 1989....

 and subsequently in the West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

.

In 2010, Kendal competed in the eighth series
Strictly Come Dancing (series 8)
The eighth series of Strictly Come Dancing began with a red carpet launch show on 11 September 2010, and the competitive live shows began on 1 October. The series concluded on 18 December when Kara Tointon and Artem Chigvintsev won the competition...

 of BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing
Strictly Come Dancing is a British television show, featuring celebrities with professional dance partners competing in Ballroom and Latin dances. The title of the show suggests a continuation of the long-running series Come Dancing, with an allusion to the film Strictly Ballroom...

. partnered with Vincent Simone
Vincent Simone
Vincent Simone is a professional dancer born in Italy. He moved to Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom when he was 17. His professional dancing partner is Flavia Cacace, and they perform under the brand name VincentandFlavia.-Early life:...

; the couple were eliminated in the eighth week when the competition was staged in Blackpool
Blackpool
Blackpool is a borough, seaside town, and unitary authority area of Lancashire, in North West England. It is situated along England's west coast by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre estuaries, northwest of Preston, north of Liverpool, and northwest of Manchester...

.

Awards

  • 1976 – Most Promising Newcomer - Variety Club
  • 1979 – Best Actress - Variety Club
  • 1980 – Clarence Derwent Award
  • 1984 – Woman of the Year - Best Actress - Variety Club
  • 1989 – Best Actress - Evening Standard Theatre Awards
    Evening Standard Awards
    The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, established in 1955, are presented annually for outstanding achievements in London Theatre. Sponsored by the Evening Standard newspaper, they are announced in late November or early December...


Personal life

Kendal's first marriage to Drewe Henley
Drewe Henley
Drewe Henley is a British actor. He had a variety of roles in film, television and theatre including as Red X-Wing Squadron Leader Garven Dreis in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. He retired from acting due to manic depression, from which he has since recovered...

 (1968 to 1979) and her second to Michael Rudman
Michael Rudman
Michael Rudman is an American theatre director.In 1960, he graduated from Oberlin College cum laude in Government and in 1964 he received an MA in English Language and Literature at Oxford where he was President of the Oxford University Dramatic Society....

 (1983 to 1990) ended in divorce. She converted to Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...

 at the time of her second marriage. Kendal has two sons: Charley, from her marriage to Henley, and Jacob, from her marriage to Rudman. In 1991 playwright Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...

 purportedly left his second wife (Miriam Stoppard
Miriam Stoppard
Miriam Stoppard OBE , is a British doctor, author, television presenter and agony aunt.- Early life and medical career :...

) to start a relationship with Kendal, who, however, has since reunited with Michael Rudman.

Kendal was made a CBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 in 1995.

External links

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