Her first appearance was at the age of 15 at Stratford EastTheatre Workshop in What a Crazy World. She enjoyed success as a stage actress, notably in West Endmusicals such as the 1967 revival of The Boy Friend. Other West End theatre credits included 'Victoria' in Half a Sixpence where she starred alongside Tommy Steele at the Cambridge Theatre, 'Winnie' in The Matchgirls, 'Belinda' in Jorrocks at the New Theatre and Alan Ayckbourn's Absent Friends at the Garrick Theatre. In 1977 she appeared as Maggie in Teeth 'n' Smiles at the Oxford Playhouse. She starred alongside Michael Crawford in a production of Flowers for Algernon at the Queen's Theatre and features on the original London cast recording of the show. She appeared in the TV musicalPickwick for the BBC in 1969. During the 1970s she appeared in several British films, including the Lust segment of The Magnificent SevenDeadly Sins and as Jo Mason in the Dick Emery film Ooh... You Are Awful. Television credits include The Strauss Family, The Sweeney, Schalcken the Painter, Hari-Kari and Sally, When the Bough Breaks, It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow and Time and Time Again, both for ATV. For ITV she was in an episode of the series The Professionals. Kennedy took the role of Eliza Doolittle opposite Rex Harrison in a 1980 revival of the 1950s Broadway production of "My Fair Lady". Her casting was initially challenged by Actor's Equity because she had been chosen ahead of more than 50 American actress finalists but Rex Harrison insisted that a British-born actress should take the part; additionally, Mike Merrick, the show's producer, maintained that her singing ability, her experience in musicals in London's West End and the authenticity she would bring as a result of her and her parents lives in the London area made her uniquely qualified for the role. From the show's opening in New Orleans in September 1980, she continued in the role for nearly a year as it toured American cities. Shortly before it began a run on Broadway at the Uris Theater on 18 August 1981, she was forced to withdraw after a physician diagnosed nodes on her vocal cords; Nancy Ringham, her understudy, assumed the role in what was her Broadway debut.
Personal life
In 1973 she married actor Tom Courtenay, but they later divorced.
