English comedian, screenwriter and actress, who has won three BAFTAs (including the BAFTA Fellowship), an International Emmy Award, a British Comedy Award, a Rose d’Or Light Entertainment Festival Award, two Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Awards, and a People’s Choice Award.
She first found widespread attention in the 1980s when she became a member of the Comic Strip after graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. With her comedy partner Dawn French, she wrote and starred in their eponymous sketch show, French and Saunders (1987-2007), for which she and French received a BAFTA fellowship in 2009. She received worldwide acclaim through the early to mid-1990s for writing and playing the lead role of Edina Monsoon in the sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1992-1996+).
She has guest-starred in the American sitcoms Roseanne and Friends, and won the American People’s Choice Award for voicing the evil Fairy Godmother in DreamWorks’ animated Shrek 2 (2004). In 2015 she voiced Queen Elizabeth II in the animated comedy film Minions.
Saunders married comedian Adrian Edmondson on 11 May 1985 in Cheshire. They have three daughters: Eleanor “Ella” Rose (born 22 January 1986, Hammersmith, London), Beatrice “Beattie” Louise (born 19 June 1987) and Freya (born 1990).
In July 2010, she stated that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2009. She is in remission following a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
On 27 August 2012, Saunders and Edmondson became grandparents when their daughter Ella gave birth to a boy, Fred. They became grandparents for the second time in February 2014 when Ella gave birth to another son, Albert Rafferty.
Saunders published her autobiography, Bonkers: My Life in Laughs, in October 2013.
Link to Wikipedia biography