Everything about Julia Sawalha totally explained
Julia Sawalha (born
9 September 1968) is an
English actress best known for her roles of Lynda Day, editor of
The Junior Gazette in
Press Gang, Saffron Monsoon in
Absolutely Fabulous and Lydia Bennet in the 1995
television miniseries of
Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice.
Biography
Early life
Sawalha was born in
London, the daughter of Roberta and
Nadim Sawalha. She was named after her grandmother, a
Jordanian businesswoman who had received an award from
Queen Noor for enterprise. She is of
Jordanian,
British, and French
Huguenot ancestry. She was born into an acting family: her father
Nadim is an actor who appeared in the
James Bond movie
The Spy Who Loved Me, while her sister
Nadia starred in the soap
EastEnders and is now a television presenter and chat show host.
Career
She first gained public attention for her starring role in the
ITV teenage comedy/drama
Press Gang, which ran from 1989 to 1993. The on-screen chemistry between the two leads was reflected off-screen, as she and co-star
Dexter Fletcher became an item for several years.
From 1991-94, she starred in the ITV family comedy
Second Thoughts and continued with her character, Hannah (
Lynda Bellingham's daughter), in the
British Comedy Award winning
Faith in the Future (1995–98).
From 1992 and 2004, she played Saffron Monsoon in the sitcom
Absolutely Fabulous alongside
Jennifer Saunders.
She starred in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's
Pride and Prejudice as Lydia Bennett, co-starring opposite
Jennifer Ehle and
Colin Firth. She also voiced Ginger in
DreamWorks/
Aardman's
Chicken Run.
In 2000 she appeared as Janet, the Australian Barmaid ("Built for bar work; it's instinct... instinct!!") in the first series of the British sitcom
Time Gentlemen Please. She also played the much put-upon PA to "Zak" in
Argos TV adverts during 2002-2004, along with
Richard E. Grant. She has also joined acclaimed actor
Ioan Gruffudd in the internationally successful TV/DVD adaptations of
CS Forester's
Horatio Hornblower novels, as the captain's first wife Maria.
In 2006, she participated in the third series of the
genealogy documentary series
Who Do You Think You Are? tracing her family's roots, which are Jordanian
Bedouin on her father's side, and French Huguenot on her mother's. She also appeared in the pilot of BBC 1's "A Taste of my Life" presented by
Nigel Slater.
After a two year break, she was back on screen in May 2007, competing in the
BBC dog training celebrity
reality show The Underdog Show.
She then returned to acting in two successive BBC costume dramas; as Jessie Brown in 2007 series
Cranford, followed by
Lark Rise to Candleford in 2008.
Personal life
She went out with and lived with
Press Gang co-star
Dexter Fletcher, and later went out with comedian
Richard Herring: "So taken was he that the Oxford-educated stand-up comedian even set up a shrine to her on
Fist of Fun, the television programme he wrote and acted in with
Stewart Lee. "My ideal woman has the head of Julia Sawalha attached to the body of Julia Sawalha," went the running gag."
Sawalha then dated
Patrick Marber. She reportedly had an affair with
Keith Allen, the actor and father of
Lily Allen.
On
1 January 2004 it was alleged in the
tabloid newspapers that she'd married boyfriend
Alan Davies, her co-star in the television series
Jonathan Creek. Both she and Davies, who avoided discussing their private lives in public, denied this, and took legal action against the reports. The couple broke up after Davies reportedly refused to commit - and was branded
"a miserable git" by her sister
Nadia.
After meeting Rich Annetts at the
Glastonbury Festival in 2005, the couple moved to
Bath, Somerset and lived in a flat close to the
Royal Crescent. Annetts had a
canal boat on the
Kennet and Avon canal, which the couple would regularly visit. The couple then moved to a cottage in the
Somerset countryside, with
solar panels and a
woodburner stove, which they renamed
Flowers Cottage. Sawalha started growing her own vegetables, attending
yoga lessons and is studying for an
Open University English degree. Sawalha and Annetts have since broken up, in part caused by her return to acting in
Cranford.
Filmography
TV
Films
Buddy's Song
Chicken Run (2000)
In the Bleak Midwinter (aka A Midwinter's Tale)
The Wind in the Willows
The Madness of King George (1994) (She played one of King George III's many daughters)Further Information
Get more info on 'Julia Sawalha'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://julia_sawalha.totallyexplained.com">Julia Sawalha Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
