, where she embarked on an acting career. After briefly attending the University of New South Wales, she transferred to the National Institute for Dramatic Art, whose alumni now include Mel Gibson and Judy Davis. She graduated from NIDA in 1971 with Bachelor of Arts equivalency and built a strong career in Australian theater. She began with six leading roles in contemporary plays at the National Theater in Perth Western Australia, then later joined the Sydney Theater Company which made its home in the Drama Theater at the Sydney Opera House. Her many leading roles with the Sydney Theater Company included Queen Isobel in Richard II, Polly Peachum in the Brecht/Weill opera Threepenny Opera, Solveig in Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Lucrezia in Machiavelli’s La Mandragola and Cordelia in Edward Bond’s Lear. She also appeared in both television and film roles until embarking on a world tour in 1976 to study theater in twelve countries in Asia and Europe.In the fall of 1976, she arrived in London, UK, and proceeded to build a television career. Most notably, she starred in Not the Nine O’Clock New, an award-winning and highly popular topical comedy program that ran for several seasons. She also appeared in a number of films and other television projects, and eventually returned to the stage to play Mabel in the Joseph Papp production of Pirates of Penzance at Drury Lane in London’s West End in 1983. She had also established herself as a live standup comic during the latter phases of not the Nine O’Clock News, beginning at the Edinburgh Festival.
In 1984 she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in New York for a season, before developing a solo show and touring the UK, Australia and New Zealand. In 1989 she presented a television series for BBC television on the subject of Women and Achievement, considering the ways females cope with the world of work, trade and commerce. In 1989 she developed, launched and ran a consumer campaign called ‘Parents For Safe Food’ that sought to raise public awareness about dangerous chemicals present in children’s food.
In … she married Scottish actor/comedian, Billy Connolly. <insert one sentence about Billy, how you met, your family, etc.> In 1991, the family relocated to Los Angeles, California, where she first began her studies in psychology at Antioch University. She obtained a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the California Graduate Institute in 1996. Dr. Pamela Connolly is currently a licensed clinical psychologist with a successful private practice in Beverly Hills, California. She provides mental health care to adults with a wide range of psychological complaints including post traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, personality disorders and substance abuse. She is a trained hypnotherapist, offering hypnosis for smoking cessation, appetite control, trauma recovery, self-esteem issues and she also provides hypnosis services to dental patients and others who need an alternative to anesthesia. Dr. Connolly provides psychotherapy to both individuals and couples.