Happy birthday to Dawn French who is celebrating her 67th lap around the sun.
The legendary comedy actress, who has been making us laugh for more than three decades with her countless TV projects, took to her Instagram Stories to share some heartwarming tributes from her loved ones and, unsurprisingly, they were full of delightfully silly humour.
Dawn shared one hand-made card she had received from someone in her life which was colourfully scribbled with rude words on the front.
The Vicar of Dibley actress wrote in the caption: “Sometimes it’s the cards that make the day,” followed by a birthday cake emoji.
Another hand-made token was a brightly coloured hearth-themed card with gorgeous pink, purple and blue shades all over the front with a simple message that read: “Happy birthday.”
The French & Saunders writer and actor didn’t reveal who the cards and well-wishes were from but it’s likely all of her close friends and family have sent her lovely messages to celebrate her big day.
Dawn French’s private life and family
The 67-year-old has spent a big chunk of this year on her comedy tour, which is, true to Dawn’s naughty sense of humour, too rude to name!
When she’s not out on the road touring up and down the country making millions of people laugh, she can be found at home on the south coast.
Dawn first moved to Cornwall in 2006 and has made on secret about her devotion to the Cornish way of life. In 2022, she moved to the port town Fowey and has said before how she much prefers a “quieter” and “unpretentious” life in the village.
The Delicious actress married her partner Mark Bignell in 2013 after a year of dating and the pair have been happily married ever since.
The couple swapped vows during an intimate ceremony held in the pretty coastal town of Newquay in Cornwall, where they used to live before their move to Fowey.
Mark and Dawn hired the exclusive Scarlet Hotel to house guests including singer Alison Moyet, filmmaker Richard Curtis and Dawn’s comedy partner and close personal friend, Jennifer Saunders.
Prior to her marriage to Mark, Dawn was married to fellow actor and comedy legend Sir Lenny Henry. The pair met on the comedy circuit in the early 1980s and tied the knot in a small ceremony in London in 1984.
They were married for 25 years but parted ways in 2010, both stressed that the split was amicable.
During their marriage, Dawn and Lenny went through fertility struggles before adopting their daughter Billie in 1991.
“I knew I wanted to definitely be a mother, that was a very strong instinct,” she explained on Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place podcast in 2018. “Then what happened was my body wouldn’t let me be a mother and everything kept failing all the time for all sorts of reasons. We had to make a big decision, to put aside IVF and go for adoption.”