Tessa Dahl

Second eldest daughter and child of Roald Dahl

James Kelly
Patrick Donovan

PartnerJulian Holloway (1976)Children4, including Sophie DahlParents

Roald Dahl
Patricia Neal

Relatives

Olivia Dahl (sister)
Theo Dahl (brother)
Ophelia Dahl (sister)
Lucy Dahl (sister)
Phoebe Dahl (niece)
Nicholas Logsdail (first cousin)
Princess Raiyah bint Hussein (daughter-in-law)

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.

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. In addition, she has written extensively for the London Times, Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, Vogue, House and Garden (US) and YOU Magazine. For many years, she was a contributing editor to the magazine Tatler.

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]

Filmography

Year	Film	Role
1973	Happy Mother's Day, Love George	Celia Perry
1975	Royal Flash	First Girl
1976	The Slipper and The Rose	Princess
1978	Leopard in the Snow	Miss Framley

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1975	Movin' On	Haley	Episode: "Prosperity #1"
1992	This Is Your Life	Herself	Episode: "Gary Glitter"
2005	Imagine	Herself	Episode: "Fantastic Mr Dahl"
2005	The Wonderful World of Roald Dahl	Herself	TV movie documentary
2005	Come Home Gary Glitter	Herself	TV documentary
2017	Revolting	Herself - Roald Dahl's Daughter	Episode #1.5

Theatre

Apprenticed at the Barter Theatre, Abingdon, Va. (1972). The Deep Man by Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1979) Royal Exchange, Manchester.

Bibliography

Working for Love (1988)
The Same But Different (1988) – picture book
Gwenda & the Animals (1989)
School Can Wait (1990)
Babies, Babies, Babies (1991) – picture book
Everywoman's Experience of Pregnancy and Birth (1994)

References

^ Shearer, Stephen Michael (16 March 2021). Patricia Neal: An Unquiet Life. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-8072-4.
^ "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
^ "A fairytale life" The Telegraph, 28 January 2003. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
^ "Great dynasties of the world: The Dahls" The Guardian, 19 November 2010. Retrieved 13 February 2017
^ "'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].