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ABOUT

Natalie Kate Blenford...

was born in central London in the 1980s. She grew up in London's leafy suburbs where she danced around the living room a lot and taught herself to sing by listening to Joseph and The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat on cassette about 20 times per week. Thank

 

She went to JFS in Camden Town for secondary school and then Woodhouse College in North Finchley for Sixth-Form, where she gained A-Levels in English Literature, Sociology, Geography and Business Studies. She then proudly gained her BA (Hons) in English and Communication Studies at The University of Liverpool. While there, she appeared in her first two musicals: FAME and GREASE and wrote precisely two articles for the Liverpool Student Newspaper. One was a review of an Easyjet flight from London Luton to Liverpool ("Not So Easy") and one was a behind the scenes exclusive about her audition for BBC2's new game show, The Weakest Link ("Natalie, you are The Weakest Link, Goodbye".) Looking back, it seems the seeds had been sowed: journalism and showbusiness were set to dominate Natalie's life for the next twenty years.

 

After graduating, armed with her two cuttings from Liverpool, Natalie tried - and failed - to get a job in magazine journalism. She was told by many a senior editor that months of work experience would be required before she could get paid as a writer, or even dream of setting foot into the editorial office. But coming from a low-income family, Natalie could not afford to play this game. Instead, she focused on pitching to editors who might use her as a freelancer. Eventually her approach paid off and she was hired by the Virgin Group to be a jobs & money editor on a new website for students. She quickly became content editor,  and fell in love with her new London life working for a start-up before start-ups were even a thing. But her love of magazines wouldn't go away. After two years, she quit her job at Virgin and began writing freelance for CosmoGIRL! and later Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Glamour and many more glossy titles. In 2007, Natalie wrote a fitness book Dance Your Way to Fitness, in association with Zest magazine, which went on international release in several European languages.

 

Yet much as Natalie loved writing, her parallel love of singing just wouldn't go away.  After playing lead roles in amateur productions of Anything Goes and Bat Boy,  she began training at the prestigious Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where she gained an MA in Acting, specialising in musical theatre. 

After graduating, Natalie was thrilled to be cast in the UK No.1 tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Whistle Down The Wind. After this, she played Sister Sophia in The Sound of Music in Malaysia, before beating hundreds of people to the role of Maria Von Trapp in a UK production of The Sound of Music the following summer. At the same time, Natalie began to book TV commercials, appearing in ad campaigns for brands such as Jacob's Creek, Waitrose, KFC, Barclaycard, Google, and easyproperty.com, Every Christmas she sang Christmas carols with her vocal harmony group. The Dukebox Singers, even performing for HRH The Duchess of Cornwall at Clarence House and for thousands of people at the Epsom Derby and Aintree for The Grand National. 

In 2015, a one week vacation to Tel Aviv changed everything. She fell in love with an Israeli man and the city and returned the following summer to explore the possibilities of life under the warm glare of the Mediterranean sun. 

Upon landing, she signed with the prestigious Rafi Agiv acting agency. and immediately landed a part in an Israeli TV show, playing The Guinness Book of Records Lady in החיים שלי/My Life with Kobi Maimon. At the same time, she began dating a lifeguard, and the story that would form the basis of her forthcoming TV series, "The Lifeguard Diaries" began to play out. 

In 2017, Natalie made Aliyah, swapping London for Tel Aviv in the longer-term. 

Four years and one pandemic later, Natalie has built an eclectic creative life for herself in Tel Aviv. She writes travel, lifestyle and news articles for global publications such as AFAR (USA); Discovery (Hong Kong); The Jewish Chronicle (UK); The Jerusalem Post (Israel); Grazia, Red and Cosmopolitan in the UK. She found work as a sometime Royal Correspondent and UK Culture Expert at i24 NEWS. And most excitingly, she's continued to develop her acting career, starring in  high-profile TV campaigns for Partner Private Fiber, Playtime, Amdocs, Bank BenLeumi, Euro Spread, Zaga, Subaru and Schweppes.

In August 2021, she was cast as Margaret: a posh British woman and series regular in Shalom Assayag's long-awaited new sit-com "The-90s/שנות התשעים" . The show will air soon on Channel 13, Reshet, Israel. 

Natalie's current projects include a memoir about her life in Tel Aviv and the final edit of her TV treatment for The Lifeguard Diaries: a rom-com gone wrong that will delight viewers of all ages.

For more information or to discuss a creative collaboration, drop her a line here.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Natalie x

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