|
John Marwood Cleese (born October 27, 1939 in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England) is a British comedian and actor best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for playing Basil Fawlty in the sitcom Fawlty Towers.
Biography
Cleese was educated at Clifton College in Bristol. His talent for comedy emerged as a member of the Cambridge Footlights Revue during the time that he was a law student at Downing College, Cambridge.
His family's surname was previously "Cheese", but his father Reginald Francis Cheese, an insurance salesman, changed his surname to "Cleese" upon joining the army in 1915 [1] (http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=John%20Cleese).
He married Connie Booth on February 20 1968 and they divorced in 1978.
He became famous as one of the members of the Monty Python team which created the 1969-74 television series Monty Python's Flying Circus; Cleese is particularly remembered for the "Cheese Shop", "The Ministry of Silly Walks", and "Dead Parrot" sketches. He achieved later success as the awful hotel manager Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, which he also cowrote with then wife Connie Booth. Cleese is noted for his talent for expressing indignation and peevish outrage. In 1988 he wrote and starred in A Fish Called Wanda along with Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and fellow python Michael Palin. The film became the most successful British film ever.
With Robin Skynner, Cleese wrote a number of books on dealing with relations: Families and how to survive them, and Life and how to survive it. The books are presented as an ongoing dialogue between Skynner and Cleese.
He also produced and acted in a number of successful business training films, including Meetings, Bloody Meetings and More Bloody Meetings about how to set up and run successful meetings.
In 1996 Cleese declined becoming a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
He is currently an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University, his term having been extended until 2006. Although he makes occasional, well-received appearances on the Cornell campus, he lives in the town of Montecito, California. During the years 1973-1975 Cleese was rector of St Andrews University, a position which he left in favour of making Fawlty Towers.
In 1999, Cleese starred in the James Bond movie, The World Is Not Enough as Q's assistant, referred to as R. In 2002 Cleese reprised his role in Die Another Day, however, the character was promoted, thus making Cleese the new quartermaster (Q) of MI6.
In a 2005 poll The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted the 2nd greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. He finished behind Peter Cook, with whom he had performed in The Secret Policeman's Ball.
Radio credits
Television credits
Filmography
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
John Cleese
References
|
