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John Cleese Biography

in full John Marwood Cleese

(1939–)

Related Works

Films
1968 Interlude
1969 The Magic Christian
1971 And Now For Something Completely Different

1975 Monty Python and the Holy Grail
1982 Privates on Parade
1983 Yellowbeard
1985 Silverado
1986 Clockwise
1988 A Fish Called Wanda
1989 Erik the Viking
1993 Splitting Heirs
1994 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
1994 Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book
1997 Fierce Creatures
1999 The World is Not Enough
2000 Isn't She Great
2001 Rat Race
2002 Die Another Day
2004 Shrek 2 (voice King Harold)
2004 Around the World in 80 Days
2005 Valiant (voice)
2005 Jade Empire (voice)
2006 Man About Town
2006 Complete Guide to Guys
2006 L'Entente cordiale
2006 Charlotte's web
Television
1966 The Frost Report
1969–74 Monty Python's Flying Circus
1975, 1979 Fawlty Towers
1979 The Life of Brian
1983 The Meaning of Life
Publications
1983 Families and How to Survive Them (with Robin Skynner)
1984 The Golden Skits of Wing commander Muriel Volestrangler FRHS and Bar
1989 The Complete Fawlty Towers
1993 Life and How to Survive It (with Robin Skynner)

» More

Related Sites

John Cleese's Official Site

(born October 27, 1939, Weston-super-Mare, Somerset [now in Avon], England) British comic actor best known for his television work on Monty Python's Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers.

Cleese began writing and performing in comedy revues at Clifton College in Bristol, England, and was a member of the renowned Footlights Club while a law student at the University of Cambridge. The 1963 Footlights revue, A Clump of Plinths, toured parts of the world as Cambridge Circus and landed Cleese a writing job for BBC radio.

In the 1960s Cleese worked as a writer and performer on David Frost's television programs That Was the Week That Was (1963), The Frost Report (1966), and At Last the 1948 Show (1967). On these shows Cleese developed a comic style of looking absolutely normal—“like an accountant,” as one critic described him—while doing and saying the most absurd things. Cleese's success on the Frost shows led to a small role in Interlude (1968), his first film appearance.

In 1969 Cleese, along with writing partner Graham Chapman, American animator Terry Gilliam, writer-performer Eric Idle, and former Frost writers Terry Jones and Michael Palin, created Monty Python's Flying Circus for television. A surrealistic mix of verbal and physical comedy sketches linked by bizarre animation, the show had some popularity in England; when the episodes were broadcast on American public television a few years later, Monty Python became a phenomenon. Although Cleese did not appear in the fourth and final season of the show, he remained with the group for recordings, stage shows, and several movies, including Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983).

Cleese's next television venture was Fawlty Towers (1975 and 1979), considered by many to be one of the funniest and best-written situation comedies ever produced. Portraying Basil Fawlty, a rude hotel manager always on the brink of nervous collapse, Cleese turned the slow burn into high comic art. He and his then wife, Connie Booth, wrote each of the six episodes that aired in 1975, as well as an additional six that were broadcast in 1979. Fawlty Towers was hugely popular in the United Kingdom, and it became a cult favourite in the United States.