Cheryl Kennedy is an English

English people

The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...

 actress.

She was born in Enfield

London Borough of Enfield

The London Borough of Enfield is the most northerly London borough and forms part of Outer London. It borders the London Boroughs of Barnet, Haringey and Waltham Forest...

, Middlesex

Middlesex

Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...

, educated at a convent, and first appeared at the age of 15 at Stratford East Theatre Workshop

Theatre Workshop

Theatre Workshop is a theatre group noted for their director, Joan Littlewood. Many actors of the 1950s and 1960s received their training and first exposure with the company...

 in What a Crazy World. She enjoyed success as a stage actress, notably in West End

West End theatre

West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...

 musicals

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 such as the 1967 revival of The Boy Friend

The Boy Friend

The Boy Friend is a musical by Sandy Wilson. The musical's original 1954 London production ran for 2,078 performances, making it briefly the third-longest running musical in West End or Broadway history until it was surpassed by Salad Days...

. Other West End Theatre credits included 'Victoria' in Half a Sixpence

Half a Sixpence

Half a Sixpence is a musical comedy written as a vehicle for British pop star Tommy Steele.It is based on H.G. Wells's novel Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul...

where she starred alongside Tommy Steele

Tommy Steele

Tommy Steele OBE , is an English entertainer. Steele is widely regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star.-Singer:...

 at the Cambridge Theatre

Cambridge Theatre

The Cambridge Theatre is a West End theatre, on a corner site in Earlham Street facing Seven Dials, in the London Borough of Camden, built in 1929-30. It was designed by Wimperis, Simpson and Guthrie; interior partly by Serge Chermayeff, with interior bronze friezes by sculptor Anthony Gibbons...

, 'Winnie' in The Matchgirls

The Matchgirls

In the 1960s, the British actor Bill Owen collaborated with songwriter Tony Russell to create a musical about the London matchgirls strike of 1888. The musical Premiered at the Globe Theatre, London on Tuesday 1 March 1966 and marked the first musical directed and choreographed by Gillian Lynne...

, 'Belinda' in Jorrocks at the New Theatre

Noël Coward Theatre

The Noël Coward Theatre, formerly known as the Albery Theatre, is a West End theatre on St. Martin's Lane in the City of Westminster. It opened on 12 March 1903 as the New Theatre and was built by Sir Charles Wyndham behind Wyndham's Theatre which was completed in 1899. The building was designed by...

, and Alan Ayckbourn

Alan Ayckbourn

Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...

's Absent Friends

Absent Friends

Absent Friends is the eighth studio album by The Divine Comedy. It was released by Parlophone in the UK on 29 March 2004 and by Nettwerk in the US on 4 May 2004...

at the Garrick Theatre

Garrick Theatre

The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster. It opened on 24 April 1889 with The Profligate, a play by Arthur Wing Pinero. In its early years, it appears to have specialised in the performance of melodrama, and today the theatre is a...

.

She starred alongside Michael Crawford

Michael Crawford

Michael Crawford OBE is an English actor and singer. He has garnered great critical acclaim and won numerous awards during his career, which covers radio, television, film, and stagework on both London's West End and on Broadway in New York City...

 in a production of Flowers for Algernon

Charlie and Algernon

Charlie and Algernon is a musical with a book and lyrics by David Rogers and music by Charles Strouse. It is based on the novel Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. It received its premiere on 21 December 1978 at The Citadel Theater, in Edmonton, Canada.The title characters are a mentally retarded...

at the Queen's Theatre

Queen's Theatre

The Queen's Theatre is a West End theatre located in Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster. It opened on 8 October 1907 as a twin to the neighbouring Gielgud Theatre which opened ten months earlier. Both theatres were designed by W.G.R...

 and features on the original London cast recording of the show. During the 1970s she appeared in several British films

Cinema of the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...

, including the Lust segment of The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins

The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins

The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins is a 1971 British comedy film directed and produced by Graham Stark. Its title is a conflation of The Magnificent Seven and the seven deadly sins. It comprises a sequence of seven sketches, each representing a sin and written by an array of British comedy-writing...

(1971) and as Jo Mason in the Dick Emery

Dick Emery

Richard Gilbert "Dick" Emery was an English comedian and actor. Beginning on radio in the 1950s, an eponymous television series ran from 1963 to 1981. He was the brother of Ann Emery.-Life and career:...

 film Ooh… You Are Awful

Ooh… You Are Awful

Ooh... You Are Awful is a 1972 British comedy film starring Dick Emery and directed by Cliff Owen.Before his death, Reggie Campbell Peek deposited a stolen £500,000 into a Swiss bank account...

(1972). Television credits include Harry Kari and Sally, When the Bough Breaks, The Strauss Family, The Sweeney

The Sweeney

The Sweeney is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London...

, Its a Lovely Day Tomorrow and Time and Time Again, both for ATV

Associated TeleVision

Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...

. For ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 she was in an episode of the series The Professionals

The Professionals (TV series)

The Professionals was a British crime-action television drama series produced by Avengers Mk1 Productions and London Weekend Television that aired on the ITV network from 1977 to 1983. In all, 57 episodes were produced, filmed between 1977 and 1981. It starred Martin Shaw, Lewis Collins and Gordon...

. In 1973 she married actor Tom Courtenay

Tom Courtenay

Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...

, but they later divorced.

She continues to appear occasionally on television, but mainly works as a theatre director and drama teacher.

External links