Maria Doyle Kennedy
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| Maria Doyle Kennedy | |
|---|---|
| Born | Maria Josephine Doyle September 25, 1964 Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland |
| Other names | Maria Doyle |
| Occupation | Actor Singer |
| Years active | 1980s–present (Singer) 1991–present (Actress) |
| Spouse(s) | Kieran Kennedy (1988–present) |
| Website | |
| www.mariadoylekennedy.com | |
Maria Doyle Kennedy (born 25 September 1964) is an award-winning and critically acclaimed composer, singer, songwriter, musician, theatre artist, orchestrator and educator from Dublin, Ireland. As an actress she is probably best known for her roles as Queen Katherine of Aragon in the award winning The Tudors and in The General, as the title character's wife, Frances.
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Life and career [edit]
Early life [edit]
Kennedy was born in Clontarf, Dublin. She graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with a joint honours degree in political science and business.
Musical career [edit]
In 2001, Maria released music on Mermaid Records, a label she founded herself. Her debut solo album Charm was released in 2001. She coordinated Sirens which is a compilation album of female artists and which was released in 2003. She released an album Skullcover consisting of cover versions in 2005, and Mütter in 2007. Maria’s new album with her husband Kieran is called The Storms Are On the Ocean. A collection of Appalachian standards dressed in darned gowns, its spiritual siblings are Plant's Band of Joy, PJ's White Chalk and Gillian Welch's stark daguerreotypes. Here are courtly tunes, murder ballads, child ballads and death fugues all backlit by Kieran Kennedy's acoustic guitar, banjo and piano. Both of her solo albums have been nominated for Meteor awards and her forthcoming project sees her teamed with U.S. country music legend John Prine Damien Rice and Paul Brady. Sing was released September 2012 and reached no 4 in Irish charts.
Musical History [edit]
Maria joined a band while still in college in the mid-80s. They formed originally to enter a Slogadh competition (which they won), but music quickly became a motivating force in her life. She has spent the better part of 20 years performing live all over the world to audiences ranging from the many thousands who have enjoyed her show at festivals (Glastonbury, Oxegen, Cambridge Folk Festival etc.) to the more intimate theatre concerts.
Maria released her first album “When Justice Came” in 1989 with The Black Velvet Band. Recorded in Los Angeles in 1989, it reached No.4 on the Irish charts and is ranked among the best Irish albums of the late 1980s.[citation needed] She then united with producers Clive Langer and Allen Winstanley to record her second Black Velvet Band album, "King Of Myself", in 1992. Irish music magazine Hot Press later called her "The finest voice this country has ever produced."[citation needed]
The Lady Sings The Blues, a compilation album featuring Maria alongside Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, Annie Lennox, followed and proved to be a best-selling album in 1994. It also established Maria in new markets throughout Europe, the US, and Japan. Touring Europe for the first time, she got rave reviews from The Guardian, The Times, and others.
Maria produced a documentary, Golden Boy, based on the life and work of Irish artist Patrick Scott and has appeared as a broadcaster on Irish television filling in for John Kelly on his Mystery Train show and for Tom Dunne on Pet Sounds.[1]
Maria also hosted an RTÉ musical series called Boarderline in the late 1980s.[2]
Acting career [edit]
Maria Doyle Kennedy played a key role in the 1991 film The Commitments. In 2007 and 2008, Maria played Queen Katherine of Aragon (King Henry VIII's first wife and mother of Mary I of England) on The Tudors.[3] She was rumoured to have returned as Katherine of Aragon in a dream sequence to The Tudors for the fourth and final season in mid 2010, and this was confirmed when the first promotional picture of the season showed Katherine (along with King Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr) on the cover. Kennedy also appeared on Irish screens early in 2011 on TG4's Corp & Anam in her first Irish language acting role. Kennedy portrayed Sonya, a nanny to Dexter Morgan's son Harrison in the fifth season of Showtime's Dexter.[4] She joined the cast of ITV's period drama Downton Abbey, appearing as Vera Bates, estranged wife of the Earl of Grantham's valet.[5] In 2012 she also played a leading role in the ITV mini-series Titanic.
Personal life [edit]
In 1988, she married musician Kieran Kennedy, and they have four sons. Maria speaks fluent Irish.
Discography [edit]
| Year | Album | Label | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Sing | Mermaid Records | |
| 2011 | The Storms Are On The Ocean | Mermaid Records | |
| 2009 | Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas | Mermaid Records | |
| 2009 | Band of Maria’s Live DVD | Mermaid Records | |
| 2008 | Forty days | Mermaid Records | |
| 2007 | Fuckability | Mermaid Records | |
| 2007 | Mütter | Mermaid Records | |
| 2005 | Skull Cover | Mermaid Records | |
| 2004 | Sirens | Mermaid Records | |
| 2001 | Charm | Mermaid Records | |
| 2001 | Stars Above | Mermaid Records |
Filmography [edit]
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | The Commitments | Natalie Murphy | |
| 1995 | Nothing Personal | Ann | |
| 1996 | Moll Flanders | Alice | |
| 1997 | A Further Gesture | Roisin | |
| The MatchMaker | Sarah Kelly | ||
| 1998 | Father Ted | Patsy | TV series (1 episode: "Night of the Nearly Dead") |
| The General | Frances | ||
| 1999 | I Could Read the Sky | Maggie | |
| Gregory's Two Girls | Bel | ||
| Miss Julie | Christine | ||
| DDU | Emma Pearson | TV series (2 episodes) | |
| Oliver Twist | Irish Shop Assistant | TV mini-series (1 episode: "Wherein It Is Shown How Oliver Twist Came to Be Born in Such Sad Circumstances") | |
| Queer as Folk | Marie Threepwood/Marie Jones | TV series (2 episodes: 1999-2000) | |
| 2000 | Queer as Folk 2 | Marie Jones | TV movie |
| 2001 | J.J Biker | ||
| 2002 | No Tears | Kitty Fogarty | TV mini-series |
| Home for Christmas | Cora Quirke | TV movie | |
| 2003 | Thursday the 12th | Nina Bannister | TV movie |
| Mystics | Foxy | Nominated—IFTA Award for Best Actress in a Film | |
| 2005 | Spin the Bottle | Anastasia | |
| Tara Road | Rosemary | ||
| 2006 | Hide & Seek | Emma Holden | TV series |
| Sorted | Roisin | TV series (6 episodes) | |
| 2007 | The Tudors | Queen Katherine of Aragon | TV series (18 episodes: 2007-2010) IFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress in Television 2008 IFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress in Television 2009 Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Series |
| 2010 | (She Owns) Every Thing | Object of Affection | short |
| Dexter | Sonya | TV series (8 episodes) | |
| 2011 | Corp & Anam | Mairéad Mhic Iarnáin | TV series |
| Albert Nobbs | Mary | ||
| Downton Abbey | Vera Bates | TV series series 2 |
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| 2012 | Titanic | Muriel Batley | TV series |
| Byzantium | Currently filming in Northern Ireland | ||
| 2013 | Orphan Black | Mrs. S, Sarah's foster mother and guardian of Kira, Sarah's daughter | TV series |
Awards and nominations [edit]
- In 2003, Maria Doyle Kennedy was nominated for the IFTA award.
- In 2008, Maria Doyle Kennedy won both the Gemini award and the IFTA award.
- In 2009, Maria Doyle Kennedy won the IFTA award.
References [edit]
- ^ Maria Doyle Kennedy at The Headline Agency
- ^ "Boarderline". RTÉ News.
- ^ Maria Doyle Kennedy Joins 'Dexter' Season
- ^ Andreeva, Nellie (June 10, 2010). "Maria Doyle Kennedy Joins ‘Dexter’ Season". Deadline.com. Retrieved October 29, 2011.
- ^ Blackburn, Jen (September 23, 2011). "I love playing the most hated woman in Britain". The Sun (London). Retrieved October 29, 2011.
External links [edit]
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