Pamela Stephenson, Lady Connolly (born 4 December 1949) is a New Zealand-born Australian and British psychologist, writer, actress and comedian. She moved with her family to Australia in 1953 and studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). After playing several stage and television roles, Stephenson emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1976.
Stephenson appeared in British television shows, including Space: 1999, New Avengers, The Professionals and Tales of the Unexpected before her breakthrough role alongside Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones in the satirical sketch show Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979–1982). In 1981, for her part in that series, Stephenson was shortlisted for BAFTAs in the Actress and Light Entertainment performance categories. She appeared in the films History of the World, Part I (1981) and SupermanIII (1983), and from 1984 to 1985, she was cast in season 10 of the American comedy-sketch television show Saturday Night Live.
In the late 1980s, Stephenson co-founded the protest group Parents for Safe Food, which successfully campaigned for a UK ban on the possibly carcinogenic plant growth regulator Alar being sprayed on apples and pears for human consumption. Since a career-change to clinical psychology and obtaining a doctorate, Stephenson has written several books, including two about her husband Billy Connolly. She has presented a psychology themed interview show called Shrink Rap (2007), and has written Head Case: Treat Yourself to Better Mental Health (2009) and Sex Life: How Our Sexual Encounters and Experiences Define Who We Are (2011). Since 2007, Stephenson has written a sexual-advice column for The Guardian. She was a finalist in the eighth series of the BBC television show Strictly Come Dancing in 2010. Her autobiography The Varnished Untruth was published in 2012.
Early life Pamela Stephenson was born on 4 December 1949 in Takapuna, Auckland, New Zealand. In 1953, she moved to Australia with her scientist parents and her two sisters. She attended Boronia Park Primary School, Sydney, and then Sydney Church of England Girls' Grammar School, Darlinghurst. According to Stephenson's autobiography, she was raped at age 16 by a 35-year-old heroin addict and contracted a sexually transmitted infection (STI). She concealed the incident but when her parents learnt of her infection, they expelled her from the family home; according to Stephenson: "I remember the feeling well, because I still experience it every time someone rejects me, even in some relatively small way". Stephenson studied at the University of New South Wales but soon switched to the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney.
Performing career
Early career After graduating from NIDA in 1970, Edgar Metcalfe employed Stephenson on a six-month contract for the National Theatre Company, and she performed in six plays at The Playhouse Theatre, Perth, in 1971. Meanwhile, she appeared with Chips Rafferty in the short film Willy Willy (1970 or 1971). Subsequent theatre roles included a part in Peer Gynt and June in the musical Gypsy. Stephenson also appeared in the television programmes Division 4, Homicide and Matlock Police. She then starred in the film Private Collection (1973). Stephenson starred as Elsie in the ABC-TV production of the opera The Yeomen of the Guard (1972). From 1972 to 1973, she played Julie King in the Australian television series Ryan and in 1974, she played Josephine in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's (ABC) production of Malcolm Williamson's opera The Violins of Saint-Jacques.
In 1976, Stephenson moved to the UK, where she worked in film and television; her roles included Michelle Osgood in the Space: 1999 episode "Catacombs of the Moon" (1976); Wendy in New Avengers episode "Angels of Death" (1977); and a supporting role in "Man from the South", the inaugural episode of Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected (1979). Stephenson played three roles in the British crime-action television series The Professionals in 1978. According to media scholar Leon Hunt, a scene in which Stephenson plays a nurse from the inside of whose blouse one of the leads retrieves a live hand-grenade epitomises the programme. She also played a nurse in Stand Up, Virgin Soldiers (1977).
Among Stephenson's first appearances in the UK was a live, on-stage role in The Comic Strip with leads Rik Mayall, Peter Richardson and Alexei Sayle at Raymond Revuebar in Soho. This was not a happy experience; according to an interview she gave in 2014: "Doing stand-up was like a war with everyone playing this game of 'I can be funnier than you'".
Not the Nine O'Clock News
Stephenson gained prominence with her part in the UK sketch-comedy television show Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979–1982) alongside Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. It was a satirical sketch show, influenced by the surreal humour of Monty Python's Flying Circus. In The Guinness Book of Classic British TV, Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping wrote Stephenson "took up the punk ethic of outraging the audience with directness", and that "most critics were united in their praise of Atkinson and Stephenson". Stephenson caricatured newsreaders Angela Rippon and Jan Leeming in the show. In one sketch, she parodied musician Kate Bush with a song called "Oh England, My Leotard", which references Bush's song "Oh England My Lionheart" and is musically similar to "Them Heavy People". Bush's biographer Graeme Thomson said the spoof has "clever and very funny" elements.
In one Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch that became famous, Stephenson played a car-rental receptionist who, when asked by a customer if he can use an American Express card, she replies: "That will do nicely, sir, and would you like to rub my tits, too?", and unbuttons her blouse. The sketch satirises the slogan "That'll do nicely, sir" the American Express company used in its advertising. According to a 2007 editorial in Art Monthly, this sketch "perfectly captured the 'greed is good' spirit of the 80s, the legacy of which is still being felt". The Guardian columnist Simon Hoggart said the sketch is "[not] exactly subversive".
Not the Nine O'Clock News was awarded the Golden Rose for innovation at the 1980 Montreux Festival. It won the BAFTA for Best Light Entertainment Programme in 1981, and Stephenson was shortlisted in the performance categories Actress and Light Entertainment performance. Spin-offs from the show included books, record albums, and the stage show Not in Front of the Audience. Stephenson made a comedy-sketch television pilot called Stephenson's Rocket, which was not taken up.
1980s and 1990s Stephenson acted in Mel Brooks' comedy film History of the World, Part I (1981); she later said she found it a dull experience due the lack of influence she had over the production. In 1982, she starred in the West End production of Joseph Papp's version of The Pirates of Penzance; The Times critic Irving Wardle wrote Stephenson "reveals unsuspected coloratura powers as Mabel, but the part wastes her comic gift".
Stephenson appeared in the music video for Landscape's single "Norman Bates" (1981); the video is a pastiche of Alfred Hitchcock's movie Psycho (1960) with Stephenson in the Janet Leigh role. Also in 1981, Stephenson appeared in performances of Clive James's 2,000-line poem "Charles Charming's Challenges On The Pathway To The Throne", which he wrote in expectation of Prince Charles announcing his engagement. The poem was performed for a two-week run in London starting in June, with James, Stephenson and Russell Davies, and was and released as an album. The following year, Stephenson released a four-track double single; the tracks were written by Richard James Burgess and one featured Gary Kemp on guitar. Several regional newspapers poorly reviewed the single. Stephenson was the subject of an episode of Behind the Scenes with... (1981), a BBC1 series about the creative process. David Williams of Daily Post said the programme "tarnished her image a little". In 1982, Stephenson was a guest on BBC Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs.
Director Richard Lester called Stephenson for a part in Superman III (1983) on the basis of her performances in Not The Nine O'Clock News. Her character was Lorelei Ambrosia, the Kant-reading girlfriend of the film's antagonist Ross Webster. In the opening sequence, Ambrosia is the foil for a series of sight gags that reference Lester's The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965); the character also has a love scene with Superman at the top of the Statue of Liberty. Joe Baltake of the Philadelphia Daily News rated Stephenson's performance in the film as "excellent" and Steve Jensen highlighted praised her performance in The Berkeley Gazette but Colin Greenland of Imagine said she was "completely wasted in a part which would have been too dumb for Goldie Hawn". Stephenson starred alongside John Gielgud and Robert Hays in Scandalous (1984), which Rob Cohen directed; critic Ben McCann said the film is "notable only for wasting the talents of all concerned". Also in 1984, Stephenson appeared in the comedy horror film Bloodbath at the House of Death, which according to Barry Forshaw's negative review in Starburst is a "shameful waste of talented performers like Pamela Stephenson". Stephenson's performance in Finders Keepers (1984) received mixed reviews; Andrew Yule, in his biography of the director Lester, praised "a deft appearance by the wonderfully funny, ridiculously underrated Pamela Stephenson" but in 1989, Jon Casimir wrote: "As sure an indicator of imminent mediocrity as any, Pamela Stephenson is cast as a supporting actress".
In 1984–1985, Stephenson was cast in the 10th season of the American comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live (SNL), making her the show's second—and only female—cast member to be born outside North America, joining Tony Rosato, and , the show's only New-Zealander cast member. Her characters on the show included Billy Idol and Cyndi Lauper. In a retrospective article about SNL in Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield described Stephenson as "a bright spot in a weak season". In the UK in 1986, Stephenson hosted an episode of the television show Saturday Live. The same year, Stephenson appeared in the television drama Lost Empires; The Daily Telegraph critic Charles Clover called her was one of the positives in a dull series. In 1987, Stephenson appeared in Prince Edward's charity television special The Grand Knockout Tournament with many other celebrities. She had leading parts in the black comedy film Those Dear Departed (1987) and the critically-panned and commercially unsuccessful film Les Patterson Saves the World (1987). She toured the one-woman theatre shows Naughty Night Nurses Without Panties Down Under (1985) and Scandalous Behaviour (1987).
Authors Mike Lepine and Mark Leigh, who had worked with Adrian Edmondson on the 1986 comedy book How to Be a Complete Bastard, approached Stephenson to collaborate on a companion volume How to Be a Complete Bitch, which was published in 1987. How to Be a Complete Bitch became a top-ten bestseller in the UK and sold over 300,000 copies by October that year. Stephenson told Candida Baker of The Age she was pleased the book was described as "sexist, violent and crude". The book spawned an eponymous board game.
Stephenson made her radio acting debut in the BBC Radio 4 play The Spectre of Ernie Pike (1989). She presented Move Over Darling (1990), a series of five BBC television programmes about the role of women at work and at home; the show had an all-female editorial team with Janet Street-Porter as executive producer. In 1993, Stephenson hosted the Australian lifestyle programme Sex, which The Sydney Morning Heralds critic criticised as being "prurient".
Psychology and writing