Helen Margaret Lederer was born on 24 September 1954 and is a British comedian, writer and actress who emerged as part of the alternative comedy boom at the beginning of the 1980s.
26 Facts About Helen Lederer
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Helen Lederer was born on 24 September 1954 in Carmarthen, Wales, to an English mother and Czech-Jewish father.
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Helen Lederer's father was born in 1926 in Teplice, Czechoslovakia, and many of her relatives did not survive the Holocaust.
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Helen Lederer was raised in Eltham, southeast London, and was educated at Blackheath High School and the Central School of Speech and Drama.
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Helen Lederer has a BA degree in applied social science and has received honorary doctorates from Middlesex University and Hertfordshire University.
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Helen Lederer was the only woman to write and perform in BBC Radio 4's In One Ear.
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Helen Lederer was linked with this scene for the rest of the 1980s, with a supporting role as housemaid Flossie in Happy Families and numerous appearances in related shows and live performances.
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Helen Lederer broke from the Comedy Store wing of the alternative scene in 1986 to take part in the BBC2 sketch show Naked Video, which had originated without Helen Lederer on the radio in Scotland.
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Helen Lederer played various roles, including that of a newsreader linking spoof headlines into clips which acted as punchlines, and a drunk Sloane who performed a monologue in each episode from a wine bar.
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Helen Lederer had previously worked with Saunders and her comedy partner Dawn French in their sketch show French and Saunders, as well as Happy Families and the ITV sitcom Girls on Top.
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Helen Lederer guest-acted in the Gregor Fisher sitcom The Baldy Man.
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Helen Lederer was one of the first female stand-up comedians to feature on ITV's Saturday Night Live with her own stand up set.
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Helen Lederer then took part in The Vagina Monologues on the West End stage.
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Helen Lederer has appeared on numerous radio panel games including Quote.
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Helen Lederer wrote and starred in radio shows Life with Lederer and All Change at BBC Radio 4.
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In December 2009, Helen Lederer appeared on Eggheads and went head-to-head against Kevin Ashman.
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Helen Lederer was one of eight celebrities who spent a week learning the Welsh language in an eco-friendly campsite in Pembrokeshire for the S4C television series cariad@iaith:love4language shown in July 2011.
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Helen Lederer appeared in the 2011 British live-action 3D family comedy film Horrid Henry: The Movie, as the title character's aunt Rich Aunt Ruby.
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In 2013, Helen Lederer played Miss Bowline-Hitch in the children's television series Old Jack's Boat on the CBeebies channel.
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In February 2015, Helen Lederer appeared, as grieving widow Safia, in the BBC soap opera series Doctors.
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Helen Lederer has appeared on Celebrity MasterChef, Loose Women and Countdown.
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Helen Lederer appears in the 2018 short film To Trend on Twitter in aid of young people with cancer charity CLIC Sargent with fellow comedians Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, David Baddiel and actor Jason Flemyng.
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On 11 April 2024, Helen Lederer released her memoir titled Not That I'm Bitter: A Truly, Madly, Funny Memoir.
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In 2018, Helen Lederer launched a new literary prize for comic fiction written by women.
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Helen Lederer has married twice and has a daughter, Hannah Helen Lederer-Alton, with her first husband, journalist and former editor of The Observer, Roger Alton.
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Helen Lederer is an ambassador for the King's Trust, Eve Appeal Gynaecological Cancer Charity and cancer charity GO Girls.