Francesca R. Gonshaw is an artist, writer and actress currently living and working in London.

Acting

She studied dramatic art at A.L.R.A and achieved early recognition whilst working for the BBC. She is principally remembered for her performance as Maria

Maria Recamier

Maria Recamier is a fictional character in the BBC sitcom Allo 'Allo!, which ran from 1982 to 1992. She was played by the actress Francesca Gonshaw....

 in the smash hit series - 'Allo 'Allo!

'Allo 'Allo!

'Allo 'Allo! is a British sitcom broadcast on BBC One from 1982 to 1992 comprising eighty-five episodes. It is a parody of another BBC programme, the wartime drama Secret Army, and was created by David Croft, who also wrote the theme music, and Jeremy Lloyd. Lloyd and Croft wrote the first 6...

- she made the pilot when she first began drama school and left to do the series.

Apart from this she had leading roles in tv plays such as Gesualdo, Shades and the television series The Cleopatras

The Cleopatras

The Cleopatras is a British television series produced by the BBC in 1983.The eight-part serial was a historical drama set in ancient Egypt and charted the ruling dynasty of the Cleopatras...

, Farrington of the FO, and she played the role of Amanda Parker during the entire 1987 run of the drama series Howards' Way

Howards' Way

Howards' Way is a television drama series produced by BBC Birmingham and transmitted on BBC One between 1 September 1985 and 25 November 1990. The series deals with the personal and professional lives of the yachting and business communities in the fictional town of Tarrant on the South Coast of...

. Her film credits include Biggles: Adventures in Time

Biggles: Adventures in Time

Biggles: Adventures in Time is a 1986 adventure film based on the character of Biggles from the series of novels written by Captain W.E. Johns...

and The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an...

. On stage in London and on tour she played roles such as Hermia

Hermia

Hermia is a science park near Tampere University of Technology . Hermia is located in Hervanta, a suburb of Tampere, Finland. Hermia is also acting as a technology centre for its region....

 in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ophelia

Ophelia

Ophelia is a fictional character in the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes, and potential wife of Prince Hamlet.-Plot:...

 in Hamlet

Hamlet

The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...

.

Behind the camera

She has long combined an interest in both the performing and visual arts. With Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel

Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...

 she collaborated and starred in the Grammy award winning music video, "Digging in the Dirt" (1992.) Gonshaw has also been involved in film publishing. In 1993 she took a leading part in setting up Miramax's publishing arm with Harvey Weinstein

Harvey Weinstein

Harvey Weinstein, CBE is an American film producer and movie studio chairman. He is best known as co-founder of Miramax Films. He and his brother Bob have been co-chairmen of The Weinstein Company, their film production company, since 2005...

. Her credits at Miramax ranged widely: launching the company with Jane Campion

Jane Campion

Jane Campion is a filmmaker and screenwriter. She is one of the most internationally successful New Zealand directors, although most of her work has been made in or financed by other countries, principally Australia – where she now lives – and the United States...

’s screenplay of The Piano

The Piano

The Piano is a 1993 New Zealand drama film about a mute pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater on the west coast of New Zealand. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin...

and following this with Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...

's Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction (film)

Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote its screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references...

and Paul Auster's Smoke and Blue in the Face. Soon after she compiled Love - an edition of Neruda

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....

's poetry; she also compiled and edited Prêt à Porter for Robert Altman

Robert Altman

Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director and screenwriter known for making films that are highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized his body of work with an Academy Honorary Award.His films MASH , McCabe and...

. Other leading directors and playwrights she has worked with include Martin Scorsese

Martin Scorsese

Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...

, the late Anthony Minghella

Anthony Minghella

Anthony Minghella, CBE was an English film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was Chairman of the Board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007....

, Sean Penn

Sean Penn

Sean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...

 and David Rabe.

Writing

Gonshaw has also written, directed and produced films on her own account. Whilst at Miramax she wrote her first screenplay Dizzy, on the life of Benjamin Disraeli. She also wrote two further films: Leap of Faith and Sacred Life which received development funding from Little Wing Films. Additionally, she shot two short films in this period: "Sacred" and "Judgement".

Painting

Francesca began painting in her teens and studied fine art at The Byam Shaw School Of Art. She is influenced by Euan Uglow

Euan Uglow

-Biography:Euan Uglow was born 10 March 1932 in London and as a child lived in Tulse Hill in south London. His father was an accountant, and Uglow went to the local grammar school in Tulse Hill, called Strand School. Afterwards he studied at Camberwell School of Art from 1948 to 1950...

 and studied under one of his protégés. Her art has been shown twice at the Mall Galleries. Apart from Uglow, she cites Matisse, Cézanne, Pollock

Jackson Pollock

Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...

 and de Kooning

Willem de Kooning

Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....

as significant influences on her style and approach. In 2009 she set up the gallery 'She has a Space'.

External links

• http://www.shehasaspace.com