Biography

Lenny Henry

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Lenworth George Henry was born on August 29, 1958, in Dudley, West Midlands in England to a family of Jamaican immigrants. He made his TV debut on a talent show called "New Faces" in 1975 at the age of 16. He won and went on to things such as The Fosters (1976) and Tiswas (1974), which was when his career as a comedian took off. In 1989, Lenny Henry made the stand-up comedy movie Lenny Henry: Lenny Live and Unleashed (1989), which caught the eyes of the Walt Disney Company, which gave him the lead role in the American movie True Identity (1991) and a contract to do two other Disney films for about US$1 million. The movie flopped, bringing in less than US$5 million. The contract was canceled, and Lenny got half of what he would have if he had done the three films. Lenny is now becoming well-known in the United States for the role of Gareth Blackstock in the hit BBC show Chef! (1993).
- IMDb mini biography by: D.B. Dickerson <dbdiii@juno.com>

Founded Comic Relief with Richard Curtis.
He was the voice of the shrunken head, that hung from the rear view mirror of The Knight Bus in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban".
Awarded the London Evening Standard Theatre award as best newcomer for playing Othello.
He allegedly declined the O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) before accepting the C.B.E. (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1999 Queen's New Years Honors List for his services to drama and charity.
Has an adopted daughter named Billie.

[on Till Death Us Do Part (1965)] Writer Johnny Speight tried to ensure that in each storyline, Alf came off the worst. But when I went to school the next morning, it was always me who came off worst. Context is everything. Alf Garnett was a ludicrous character, and in the right context pretty funny, but put him against the background of Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech - is he so funny then?
To walk on set and find a black director of photography or an Asian boom operator is as rare as seeing John McCririck on the front cover of Vanity Fair.
TV producers of the 1960s and 1970s missed a great opportunity. Rather than reflect the reality of multi-ethnic Britain they chose a more xenophobic route - emphasizing points of difference instead of similarities. If they had been more truthful in their observations, who's to say we couldn't have encouraged more young black kids at school or prevented the Brixton riots even?
There is still so much work to do. When you can cast a Somalian girl in your piece simply because she's the best actress, or when you can cast an Asian girl and she is not playing the victim of an arranged marriage, or cast a bloke with dreadlocks not playing a drug dealer, then we will have something to work on.
[on costume dramas] By the time Queen Victoria was on the throne, this country had a sizable black population, so where are they? You can't move for bonnets and crinolines and the people wearing them are all white.

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