Lynne Franks's Biography

Lynne Franks was born in 1948, the daughter of a north London Jewish butcher.

She left school at 16, and after a stint as a typist, including being Janet Street-Porter's secretary, she founded Lynne Franks PR in 1970 aged just 21.

Like Janet Street-Porter, Lynne Franks went on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, however she was the third person to leave the 2007 series.

The PR agency proved very successful. Its clients included Jean-Paul Gaultier, Swatch watches, and the Labour Party, however Lynne Franks sold it in 1992, reportedly for £6m, in the same week that her marriage broke up.

Lynne Franks then adopted an 'alternative lifestyle' and embarked on a journey of self-discovery.

Lynne Franks established the Seed network for women entrepreneurs and wrote SEED: The Feminine Way to Create Business.

Lynne Franks also wrote GROW - Gorgeous Real Original Women, and an autobiography Absolutely Now!

The title was a play on the belief that Lynne Franks was the inspiration for Jennifer Saunders's Absolutely Fabulous, but in November 2007, The Independent had an interview with Lynne Franks, in which she explains that she believes the Ab Fab character was a composite of different people:

"It was a metaphor for the time, a parody of the Eighties and very funny. There are aspects of me in there and aspects of other people. Some of it was hysterical - the whole Buddhist thing she got from me because I was a practising Buddhist then."