Felicity Kendal CBE (born September 25, 1946 in Olton, Warwickshire) is an English actress. She is the younger sister of the late Jennifer Kendal and the daughter of Geoffrey Kendal, an English actor manager who made his living leading a repertory company on tours of India after the Second World War. They performed Shakespeare to audiences consisting mostly of schoolchildren. Her father changed his name from Bragg to that of his birthplace Kendal, Lancashire, which he adopted as his stage name.
Felicity Kendal made her stage debut in these productions, and at the age of nineteen, starred in the Merchant-Ivory film, Shakespeare Wallah (1965), loosely based on her family's real-life experience. On her return to Britain, she found that her film appearance was not a passport to success, and her struggle to build an acting career was long and difficult, partly because of her unusual upbringing. In 1975, she got her big break with the sitcom, The Good Life, which made her a household name.
After this series ended, she starred in several other BBC sitcoms, none of which achieved the success of The Good Life. Despite this, she maintained her popularity.
She is particularly popular with male viewers, and was voted "Rear of the Year" for her appearances wearing wellington boots and tight jeans in The Good Life. This compliment was later reiterated, in the distant future, in an episode of Red Dwarf. She was selected as one of the FHM 100 Sexiest Women in the World 1995.
Kendal's stage career blossomed during the 1980s and 1990s. Her relationship with playwright Sir Tom Stoppard was both personal and professional. She starred in the first productions of many of his plays; in 1991 Stoppard left his wife to start a relationship with Kendal.
Her most recent work is the ITV murder mystery series Rosemary & Thyme, in which she plays a gardener, Rosemary Boxer, who, together with friend, colleague and ex-policewoman Laura Thyme (Pam Ferris), solve mysteries near their various workplaces as landscape gardeners.
Felicity Kendal is 152 cm (5 ft) tall. She converted to Judaism on her second marriage to Michael Rudman.
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