1. Jennifer Jane Saunders was born on 6 July 1958 and is an English actress, comedian, singer, and screenwriter.
40 Facts About Jennifer Saunders
1. 2.
Jennifer Saunders later received acclaim in the 1990s for writing and playing her character Edina Monsoon in her sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
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Jennifer Jane Saunders was born on 6 July 1958 in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, England.
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Jennifer Saunders's mother, Barbara Jane, was a biology teacher, and her father, Robert Thomas Saunders, served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force.
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Jennifer Saunders reached the rank of group captain, and later worked for British Aerospace.
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Six months after her birth, Jennifer Saunders' parents moved to Cyprus.
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Jennifer Saunders's family moved to Camberley, and then to Melksham at the age of ten.
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Jennifer Saunders was educated from the age of five to 18 in boarding schools and then at St Paul's Girls' School, an independent school in west London.
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Jennifer Saunders's parents had wanted her to board at Stonar School.
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Jennifer Saunders's family moved to Cheshire in 1971 when her father left the RAF for Hawker Siddeley.
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In 1977, Jennifer Saunders received a place at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London on a drama teachers' course, where she met her future comedy partner, Dawn French.
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French and Jennifer Saunders came from RAF backgrounds, and had grown up on the same base, even having had the same best friend, without ever meeting.
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The comic duo originally did not get on well, and as far as Jennifer Saunders was concerned, French was a "cocky little upstart".
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French wanted to become a drama teacher, whereas Jennifer Saunders loathed the idea and had not fully understood what the course was about; thus, she disliked French for being enthusiastic and confident about the course.
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Jennifer Saunders was shocked to find that she was taking a course to become a teacher, as her mother had filled in the application form.
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Jennifer Saunders's mother was saddened when Saunders chose not to apply for an Oxbridge university education.
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Jennifer Saunders described the act, which involved wearing tampons in their ears, as "cringeworthy".
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In 1985, Jennifer Saunders starred in and co-wrote Girls on Top with French, Tracey Ullman, and Ruby Wax, which portrayed four eccentric women sharing a flat in London.
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Jennifer Saunders appeared in Ben Elton's Happy Families where she played various members of the same family, including all four Fuddle sisters in the six-episode BBC situation comedy.
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Jennifer Saunders starred in a Comic Strip film called The Supergrass, a parody of slick 1980s police dramas, directed by Peter Richardson.
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Jennifer Saunders played Meryl Streep playing Arthur Scargill's wife in Strike, a Comic Strip spoof on the 1984 miners' strike.
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Jennifer Saunders appeared twice as a guest on The Young Ones.
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Jennifer Saunders appeared in Amnesty International's The Secret Policeman's Biggest Ball live benefit in 1989, along with Dawn French and others.
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Jennifer Saunders appeared on the "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" segment of BBC Two's motoring show Top Gear, posting a lap time of 1:46.1s, making her the fifth-fastest guest ever in the car that was used at that time.
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In 2011, Jennifer Saunders wrote and appeared in "Uptown Downstairs Abbey", the Comic Relief parody of the critically acclaimed historical television dramas Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs.
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In 2013, Saunders starred as Lady Constance Keeble in the BBC adaptation of Blandings by P G Wodehouse.
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In 2017, Jennifer Saunders appeared on the Simpsons episode "Looking for Mr Goodbart" as an elderly woman accompanied around by Bart.
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Jennifer Saunders voiced Miss Spink in the animated film Coraline, in which her comedy partner Dawn French voiced a character called Miss Forcible.
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In 2018, Jennifer Saunders appeared at the Vaudeville Theatre in the production of Lady Windermere's Fan as The Duchess of Berwick.
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Jennifer Saunders reprised the role in autumn 2021 for eight weeks in the West End at The Harold Pinter Theatre.
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In 2022, Jennifer Saunders played the role of Mother Superior in Sister Act the Musical for six weeks at the Eventim Apollo Hammersmith, alongside Beverley Knight as Deloris Van Cartier.
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In December 2023, Jennifer Saunders made her pantomime debut as Captain Hook in Peter Pan at the London Palladium alongside Julian Clary, Paul Zerdin, Nigel Havers, Gary Wilmot, Rob Madge, Francis Mayli McCann and Louis Gaunt.
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Jennifer Saunders, who grew up in nearby Acton Bridge, married Adrian Edmondson at Christ Church, Crowton, Cheshire on 11 May 1985.
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In July 2010, Jennifer Saunders announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer the previous October, and was in remission following a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy.
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Jennifer Saunders published her autobiography, Bonkers: My Life in Laughs, in October 2013.
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Jennifer Saunders is a patron for Smart Works Charity, a non-profit organisation supporting unemployed women into work through clothing and coaching.
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Jennifer Saunders came 18th for Best British Role Models for teenage girls in Britain according to Good Housekeeping Magazine.
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Jennifer Saunders was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Exeter in July 2007.
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In 2005, Jennifer Saunders was named the fourth funniest woman in Britain in a poll of 4,000 women.
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Jennifer Saunders has been nominated for and received many awards, including:.