Tessa Dahl

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Tessa Dahl
Born
Chantal Sophia Dahl

(1957-04-11) 11 April 1957 (age 67)
Oxford, England
Occupation(s)Novelist, journalist
Spouses
  • James Kelly
  • Patrick Donovan
Partner Julian Holloway (1976)
Children4, including Sophie Dahl
Parents
Relatives

Chantal Sophia "Tessa" Dahl (born 11 April 1957) is a British author and former actress. She is the daughter of British-Norwegian author Roald Dahl and American actress Patricia Neal.

Contents

Early life

Dahl was born at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, the second daughter of British author Roald Dahl and American actress Patricia Neal; [1] her elder sister Olivia died from measles in 1962. She grew up in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, and attended Roedean and Downe House schools, the Elizabeth Russell Cookery School and the Herbert Bergof Acting Studio.

Career

Dahl has worked as an actress, modelled, worked at an antique shop, worked at an employment agency and written articles for Tatler before publishing her first novel, the semi-autobiographical Working For Love, in 1988. [2] Dahl became an author of children's fiction. Her book Gwenda and the Animals won the Friends of the Earth Best Children's Book of the Year.

Personal life

Dahl's relationship with actor Julian Holloway produced one daughter, model and author Sophie Dahl; the couple separated shortly afterwards. [3] She subsequently married businessman James Kelly and had two children, Clover and Luke. She then married businessman Patrick Donovan (deceased on 7 February 2021), son of Ambassador Francis Patrick Donovan, and had a son, Ned, a journalist. In 2019, the Jordanian royal court announced Ned's engagement to Princess Raiyah bint Hussein, the youngest daughter of King Hussein I of Jordan and Queen Noor; they married in 2020.

Tessa Dahl has also had relationships with Peter Sellers, David Hemmings, Bryan Ferry, Brian de Palma and Dai Llewellyn. [4] [5]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

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Sophie Dahl is an English author and former fashion model. Her first novel, The Man with the Dancing Eyes, was published in 2003 followed by Playing With the Grown-ups in 2007. In 2009, she wrote Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights, a cookery book which formed the basis for a six-part BBC Two series named The Delicious Miss Dahl. In 2011, she published her second cookery book From Season to Season. Her first children's book, Madame Badobedah, was released in 2019. She is the daughter of Tessa Dahl and Julian Holloway and the granddaughter of author Roald Dahl, actress Patricia Neal, and actor Stanley Holloway.

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Olivia Twenty Dahl was the oldest child of the author Roald Dahl and the American actress Patricia Neal. She died at the age of seven from encephalitis caused by measles, before a vaccine against the disease had been developed. Roald Dahl's books James and the Giant Peach (1961) and The BFG (1982) were dedicated to Olivia. As a result of her death, her father Roald became an advocate for vaccination and wrote the pamphlet "Measles: A Dangerous Illness" in 1988.

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References

  1. Shearer, Stephen Michael (16 March 2021). Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN   978-0-8131-8072-4.
  2. "For Love and Money : Celebrity Daughter Tessa Dahl Wrote Her First Novel Because She Needed a Job. She Also Needed the Applause." Los Angeles Times, 5 March 1989. Retrieved 10 November 2015
  3. "A fairytale life" The Telegraph, 28 January 2003. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  4. "Great dynasties of the world: The Dahls" The Guardian, 19 November 2010. Retrieved 13 February 2017
  5. "'In my youth," Tessa Dahl has said, "I was notorious not famous." Her father was legendary author Roald Dahl and her mother the movie star Patricia Neal. Life was never going to be conventional for Tessa." Sunday Independent (Dublin, Republic of Ireland), 26 December 2010].