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cajeffery Posted October 2, 2010 Author Posted October 2, 2010 Uploaded with ImageShack.us Julia Sawalha (born 9 September 1968) is a British actress best known for her roles as Saffron Monsoon in Absolutely Fabulous, Lynda Day, editor of The Junior Gazette in Press Gang and Lydia Bennet in the 1995 television miniseries of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. She currently plays Dorcas Lane in the BBC's costume drama Lark Rise to Candleford. Early life Sawalha was born in London, the daughter of Roberta and actor 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, English, and French Huguenot ancestry. She was born into an acting family: her father Nadim is an actor who appeared in the James Bond movies The Spy Who Loved Me and The Living Daylights, while her sister Nadia starred in the soap EastEnders and is now a television presenter and chat show host. Career Sawalha made her debut in the 1982 BBC mini series Fame is the Spur and in 1988 played a small role in Inspector Morse on the episode "Last Seen Wearing". She first gained attention for her starring role in the Bafta award-winning 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 had a relationship 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). In 1994 she played Mercy (Merry) Pecksniff in the BBC production of Martin Chuzzlewit. From 1992 to 2005 Sawalha played strait-laced daughter Saffron Monsoon in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous alongside Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. She starred in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as Lydia Bennet, 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 wife Maria. The following year, she became the Alan Davies co-star in Jonathan Creek after Caroline Quentin left, appearing in a Christmas Special ("Satan's Chimney"). She returned for a series between 2003-2004. 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.[4] 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.[5] 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. She provided the voice acting for Sister Hannah (a.k.a. "Hammer"), a main character in the Xbox 360 video game Fable II. Personal life She dated and lived with Press Gang co-star Dexter Fletcher, and subsequently comedian Richard Herring. Sawalha also dated Patrick Marber. She reportedly had an affair with actor Keith Allen, the father of Lily Allen and Alfie Allen . On 1 January 2004 it was alleged in the tabloid newspapers that she had 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. After she met 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. They then moved to a cottage in the Somerset countryside, 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 split up, in part caused by her return to acting in Lark Rise to Candleford. Quote
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