Jump to content

John Cleese

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 24.203.43.194 (talk) at 00:54, 18 April 2008. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
John Cleese
Cleese at the 1989 Academy Awards
PseudonymKim Bread / John Otto Cleese/ [basil fawlty] / John Spam John Spam John Spam Cleese / John C. Cleeseberg / John Ecles / Nigel Faquhar-Bennett / Montypython Flyingcircus / Spitting Image / Monty Python / The Usual Lot / John Cleese Whicker
Birth nameJohn Marwood Cleese
Born (1939-10-27) 27 October 1939 (age 85)
Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, England
SpouseAlice Faye Eichelberger (1992-present)
Barbara Trentham (1981-1990)
Connie Booth (1968-1978)
Websitehttp://thejohncleese.com/
"Cleese" redirects here. For the actress and daughter of John Cleese, see Cynthia Cleese.

John Marwood Cleese (Template:IPAEng) (born 27 October 1939) is an English award-winning actor, comedian, writer, film producer and singer.

Cleese is probably best known for his various roles in the British comedy Monty Python's Flying Circus, his role as Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers and his various roles in the British comedy The Frost Report. He is also known for his award-winning role as Archie Leach in the American / British comedy film A Fish Called Wanda.

Early life

Cleese was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England to Reginald Francis Cleese and Muriel (Cross). His family's surname was previously "Cheese", but his father, an insurance salesman, changed his surname to "Cleese" upon joining the army in 1915.[1] As a boy, Cleese was educated at Clifton College in Bristol, from which he was expelled for defacing school grounds: he used painted footsteps to suggest that the school's statue of Field Marshal Earl Haig had got down from his plinth and gone to the toilet.[2]

He joined the Cambridge Footlights Revue while he was studying for a law degree at Downing College, Cambridge (where he was taught Equity by John Hopkins, a noted Downing figure). Here he met his future writing partner Graham Chapman. Cleese wrote extra material for the 1961 Footlights Revue I Thought I Saw It Move,[3][4] and was Registrar for the Footlights Club during 1962, as well as being one of the cast members for the 1962 Footlights Revue Double Take![3][4]

Cleese was one of the script writers, as well as being a member of the cast for the 1963 Footlights Revue A Clump of Plinths,[3][4] which was so successful during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that its name was changed to Cambridge Circus, was taken to West End in London, and then on a tour of New Zealand and Broadway, with the cast also appearing in some of the revue sketches on The Ed Sullivan Show in September 1964.[4]

After Cambridge Circus, Cleese decided to stay on in America performing on and off-Broadway, including in the musical Half a Sixpence,[4] and it was during this time he met future Python Terry Gilliam and his future wife, American actress Connie Booth, whom he married on February 20, 1968.[4]

As Cleese's comic reputation grew, he was soon offered a position as a writer with BBC Radio, where he worked on several programmes, most notably as a sketch writer for The Dick Emery Show. The success of the Footlights Revue led to the recording of a short series of half-hour radio programmes, called I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, which was so popular that the BBC commissioned a regular series with the same title.[4]

In 1971, Booth gave birth to Cynthia Cleese, their only child.

Career

Pre-Python

After his return to England, Cleese started performing as a cast member of the highly successful BBC Radio show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, which ran from 1965 to 1974.[4] Cleese is referred to at the close of every episode as "John Otto Cleese".

In 1965, Cleese and Chapman began writing on The Frost Report. The writing staff chosen for The Frost Report consisted of a number of writers and performers who would go on to make names for themselves in comedy. They included future Goodies Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor, and also Frank Muir, Barry Cryer, Marty Feldman, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Dick Vosburgh and future Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. It was while working on The Frost Report, in fact, that the future Pythons developed the writing styles that would make their collaboration significant. Cleese and Chapman's sketches often involved authority figures, some of which were performed by Cleese, while Jones and Palin were both infatuated with filmed scenes that open with idyllic countryside panoramas. Idle was one of those charged with writing David Frost's monologue. It was during this period that Cleese met and befriended influential British comedian Peter Cook.

Cleese (right) unsuccessfully attempting to return his dead parrot to Michael Palin in a 1969 episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus

Such was the popularity of the series that in 1966 Cleese and Chapman were invited to work as writers and performers with Brooke-Taylor and Feldman on At Last the 1948 Show,[4] during which time the Four Yorkshiremen sketch was written by all four writers/performers (the Four Yorkshiremen sketch is now better known as a Monty Python sketch). John Cleese and Graham Chapman also wrote episodes of Doctor in the House. These series were successful and, in 1969, Cleese and Chapman were offered their very own series. However, due to Chapman's alcoholism, Cleese found himself bearing an increasing workload in the partnership and was therefore unenthusiastic about doing a series with just the two of them. He had found working with Palin on The Frost Report an enjoyable experience, and invited him to join the series. Palin had previously been working on Do Not Adjust Your Set, with Idle and Jones, and Terry Gilliam doing animations. The four of them had, on the back of the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set, been offered a series for ITV, which they were waiting to begin when Cleese's offer arrived. Palin agreed to work with Cleese and Chapman in the meantime, bringing with him Gilliam, Jones and Idle.

Monty Python

Monty Python's Flying Circus ran for four series from October 1969 to December 1974 on BBC. Cleese's two primary characterizations were as a sophisticate and a stressed-out loony. He portrayed the former as a series of announcers, TV show hosts, government officials (qv. "The Ministry of Silly Walks"), et al. The latter is perhaps best represented in the "Cheese Shop", and by Cleese's Mr Praline character, the man with a dead Norwegian Blue parrot and a menagerie of other animals all named "Eric." He was also known for his working-class "Sergeant Major" character, which worked as a Police Sergeant, Roman Centurion, etc.

The Dead Parrot sketch performed on Monty Python's Flying Circus in 1969
listen to a clip from the sketch.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Partnership with Graham Chapman

Along with Gilliam's animations, Cleese's work with Chapman provided Python with its darkest and angriest moments, and many of his characters display the seething suppressed rage that later characterised his portrayal of Basil Fawlty. Many critics naturally make a connection with Cleese's own self-confessed neuroses (he has spoken openly about receiving psychoanalysis).

Unlike Palin and Jones, Cleese and Chapman actually wrote together, in the same room; Cleese claims that their writing partnership involved him sitting with pen and paper, doing most of the work, while Chapman sat back, not speaking for long periods, then suddenly coming out with an idea that often elevated the sketch to a different level. A classic example of this is the "Dead Parrot" sketch, envisaged by Cleese as a satire on poor customer service, which was originally to have involved a broken toaster, and later a broken car (this version was actually performed and broadcast, on the pre-Python special How To Irritate People). It was Chapman's suggestion to change the faulty item into a dead parrot, as well as suggesting that the parrot be specifically a Norwegian Blue, giving the sketch a surreal air which made it far more memorable.

Their humour often involved ordinary people in ordinary situations behaving absurdly for no obvious reason. Like Chapman, Cleese's poker face, clipped middle-class accent and imposing height allowed him to appear convincing as a variety of authority figures - which he would then proceed to undermine. Many of his characters have a kind of incipient madness, but remain utterly straight-faced and impassive while behaving in a ludicrous fashion. Most famously, in the "Ministry of Silly Walks" sketch (actually written by Palin and Jones), Cleese exploits his extraordinary stature as the crane-legged civil servant performing a grotesquely elaborate walk to his office.

Chapman and Cleese also specialised in sketches where two characters would conduct highly articulate arguments over completely arbitrary subjects, such as in the "cheese shop", the "dead parrot" sketch and, perhaps most notably, the "argument sketch", where Cleese plays a stone-faced bureaucrat employed to sit behind a desk and engage people in pointless, infuriatingly trivial bickering. All of these roles were opposite Palin (who Cleese often claims is his favourite Python to work with) – the comic contrast between the towering Cleese's crazed aggression and diminutive Palin's shuffling inoffensiveness is a common feature in the series. Occasionally, the typical Cleese-Palin dynamic is reversed, as in "Fish Licence", wherein Palin plays the bureaucrat with whom Cleese is trying to work (though it is still Cleese who plays the "loony" half of the duo).

Though the programme lasted four series, by the start of series 3, Cleese was growing tired of coping with Chapman's alcoholism. According to Gilliam, Cleese was the "most Cambridge" of the Cambridge-educated members of the group (Cleese, Chapman, and Idle), by which Gilliam meant that Cleese was the tallest (6'4") and most aggressive of the whole group. He felt, too, that the show's scripts had declined in quality. For these reasons, he became restless and decided to move on. Though he stayed for the third series, he officially left the group before the fourth season. Despite this, he remained friendly with the group, and all six began writing Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Cleese received a credit on episodes of the fourth series which used material from these sessions, and even makes a brief appearance in one episode, though he was officially unconnected with the fourth series. Cleese returned to the troupe to co-write and co-star in the Monty Python films Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Python's Life of Brian and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, and would participate in various live performances over the years.

File:Fawlty towers.jpg
Cleese (back) as Basil Fawlty with the rest of the Fawlty Towers cast.

Post-Python

From 1970 to 1973 Cleese served as rector of the University of St Andrews.[5] While his election by the students might have seemed a prank, it proved a milestone for the University, revolutionising and modernising the post. For instance, the Rector was traditionally entitled to appoint an "Assessor", a deputy to sit in his place at important meetings in his absence. Cleese changed this into a position for a student, elected across campus by the student body, resulting in direct access and representation for the student body for the first time in over 500 years. This was but one of a host of improvements that Cleese swept in as a true wind of change.

Having left Python, Cleese went on to achieve possibly greater success in the United Kingdom as the neurotic hotel manager Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, which he co-wrote with his wife Connie Booth. The series won widespread critical acclaim and is still considered one of the finest examples of British comedy, having won three BAFTA awards when produced and recently topping the British Film Institute list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. The series also featured Andrew Sachs as the much abused Spanish waiter Manuel ("...he's from Barcelona"), Prunella Scales as Basil's fire-breathing dragon of a wife Sybil, and Booth as waitress Polly. Cleese based Basil Fawlty on a real person, Donald Sinclair, whom he encountered in 1970, when he and the rest of the Monty Python team were staying at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay while filming Monty Python's Flying Circus. Cleese was reportedly inspired by Sinclair's mantra of "I could run this hotel just fine, if it weren't for the guests." He later described Sinclair as "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met", although Sinclair's widow has since said her husband was totally misrepresented in the comedy.

During the Pythons' stay, Sinclair threw Idle's briefcase out of the hotel "in case it contained a bomb", complained about Gilliam's "American" table manners, and threw a bus timetable at another guest after they dared to ask the time of the next bus to town.

The first series began on 19 September 1975, and while not an instant hit, soon gained momentum. However, the second series did not appear until 1979, by which time Cleese's marriage to Booth had ended. The two nevertheless reprised their writing and performing roles in the second series. Fawlty Towers consisted of only 12 episodes; Cleese and Booth both maintain that this was to avoid compromising the quality of the series.

File:Tv muppet show john cleese.jpg
John Cleese also made a non-singing guest appearance on The Muppet Show

In 1978, Cleese appeared as guest star on The Muppet Show. Instead of singing along, he showed up with a pretend album, his own new vocal record John Cleese: A Man & His Music, and finally strangled Kermit the Frog. Cleese won the TV Times award for Funniest Man On TV - 1978 / 1979.

Later work

During the 1980s and 1990s, Cleese focused on film, though he did work with Peter Cook in his one-off TV special Peter Cook and Co. in 1980. In the same year a theatrical piece for TV was released, with Cleese playing Petruchio, in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. He also rejoined the Pythons for Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982), and starred in The Secret Policeman's Ball for Amnesty International. He married Barbara Trentham on 15 February 1981. Their daughter Camilla was born in 1984.

Timed with the 1983 UK elections, he appeared in a video promoting proportional representation. [1]

In 1987, during the 1987 UK General Election he recorded a nine minute party political broadcast for the SDP-Liberal Alliance, which talks about the similarities and failures of the other two parties in a more humorous tone than the standard political broadcast. It is not known if Cleese has transferred his support from the SDP to the Liberal Democrats.

In 1988 he wrote and starred in A Fish Called Wanda, as the lead, Archie Leach, along with Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin. Wanda became an incredible success, and Cleese was nominated for an Academy Award for his script. Cynthia Cleese starred as Leach's daughter.

In 1990, he and Trentham divorced. On 28 December 1992 he married Alyce Faye Eichelberger. In January 2008, it was reported that they had separated.[6]

Chapman was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1989; Cleese, Michael Palin, Peter Cook and Chapman's partner David Sherlock, witnessed Chapman's passing. Chapman's death occurred one day before the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of Flying Circus with Jones commenting, “the worst case of party-pooping in all history.” Cleese gave a stirring eulogy at Chapman's memorial service, in which he "became the first person ever at a British memorial service to say 'fuck'".[7]

Cleese 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. These were produced by his company Video Arts.

With Robin Skynner, the Group Analyst (Group Analysis) and family therapist, Cleese wrote two books on relationships: Families and how to survive them, and Life and how to survive it. The books are presented as a dialogue between Skynner and Cleese.

In 1996, Cleese declined the British honour of Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

In 1999, Cleese appeared in the James Bond movie, The World Is Not Enough as Q's assistant, referred to by Bond as R. In 2002, when Cleese reprised his role in Die Another Day, the character was promoted, making Cleese the new quartermaster (Q) of MI6. In 2004, Cleese was featured as Q in in the video game James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing, featuring his likeness and voice. Cleese did not appear in the subsequent Bond film, Casino Royale, and it is unknown whether Cleese will reprise the role in future Bond films.

He is currently Provost's Visiting Professor at Cornell University, after having been Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large from 1999-2006. He makes occasional, well-received appearances on the Cornell campus, but he lives in the town of Montecito, California.

In a 2005 poll of comedians and comedy insiders The Comedian's Comedian, Cleese was voted second only to Peter Cook. Also in 2005, a long-standing piece of Internet humour, "The Revocation of Independence", was wrongly attributed to Cleese.

Cleese recently lent his voice to the BioWare video game Jade Empire. His role was that of an "outlander" named Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard, stranded in the Imperial City of the Jade Empire. His character is essentially a British colonialist stereotype who refers to the people of the Jade Empire as savages in need of enlightenment.

He also had a cameo appearance in the computer game Starship Titanic as "The Bomb" (credited as "Kim Bread"), designed by Douglas Adams. When the bomb is activated it tells the player that "The ship is now armed and preparing to explode. This will be a fairly large explosion, so you'd best keep back about 22 miles (35 km)". When the player tries to disarm the bomb, it says "Well, you can try that, but it won't work because nobody likes a smartarse!"

In 2003, Cleese also appeared as Lyle Finster in long-running US sitcom Will & Grace.

In 2004, Cleese was credited as co-writer of a DC Comics graphic novel entitled Superman: True Brit. Part of DC's "Elseworlds" line of imaginary stories, True Brit, mostly written by Kim Howard Johnson, suggests what might have happened had Superman's rocket ship landed in Britain, not America.

From 10 November to 9 December 2005, Cleese toured New Zealand with his stage show 'John Cleese — His Life, Times and Current Medical Problems'. Cleese described it as "a one man show with several people in it, which pushes the envelope of acceptable behaviour in new and disgusting ways." The show was developed in New York with William Goldman and includes Cleese's daughter Camilla as a writer and actor (the shows were directed by Australian Bille Brown.) His assistant of many years, Garry Scott-Irvine, also appeared, and was listed as a co-producer. It then played in universities in California and Arizona from January 10 to March 25 2006 under the title "Seven Ways to Skin an Ocelot".[8] His voice can be downloaded for directional guidance purposes as a downloadable option on some personal GPS-navigation device models by company TomTom.

In June 2006, while promoting a football (soccer) song in which he was featured, entitled Don't Mention the World Cup, Cleese appears to have claimed that he decided to retire from performing in sitcoms, instead opting to writing a book on the history of comedy and tutoring young comedians.[9] This was an erroneous story, the result of an interview with The Times of London (the piece was not fact checked before printing).

In 2007, Cleese is appearing in ads for Titleist as a golf course designer named "Ian MacCallister", who represents "Golf Designers Against Distance".

In 2007, he started filming the sequel to The Pink Panther, titled The Next Pink Panther with Steve Martin and Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai.

On September 27, 2007, The Podcast Network announced it had signed a deal with Cleese to produce a series of video podcasts called HEADCAST to be published on TPN's website.

John Cleese's most recent live comedic performance was at the 2006 Just For Laughs festival in Montreal, Canada. Cleese was host for one of the galas and performed sketches very reminiscent to his Monty Python days. His first sketch was him performing his own eulogy as he promised to kill himself as the grand finale, remarking "Top that Jason Alexander...you bastard." The second sketch was him as the judge of 'Cleese Idol', where contestants from Montreal would be performing his skits, so he could find his successor. He shot the last contestant as well as the special guest host, Ben Mulroney (the host of Canadian Idol). The gala ended with his "execution", where he asked people to choose the method of execution by text messaging a number (which was fake). The choices were stoning, electric chair, firing squad, hanging and guillotine. The guillotine won, and Cleese was beheaded just as he was about to say something to the crowd.

Cleese has expressed support for U.S. Senator Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, donating US$2,300 to his campaign[2] and offering his services as a speechwriter.[10]

Honours and tributes

  • A species of lemur, Avahi cleesei, has been named in his honour. John Cleese mentioned this in television interviews. Also there is mention of this honour in "New Scientist"[11]—and John Cleese's response to the honour.[12]
  • An asteroid, 9618 Johncleese, is named in his honour.
  • Cleese declined a CBE (Commander of The British Empire) in 1996.

Radio credits

Television credits

Filmography

Video game credits

Other credits

  • In 2003, John Cleese took part in Mike Oldfield's re-recording of the 1973 hit Tubular Bells, Tubular Bells 2003. He took over the "Master of Ceremonies" duties in the ‘Finale’ part, in which he announced the various instruments eccentrically, from the late Vivian Stanshall.[13]
  • Cleese recorded the voice of God for Spamalot, the musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
  • In an episode of Will & Grace, he referred to the maid character, Rosario, as Manuel, a homage to his previous television show Fawlty Towers.
  • Cleese narrated the audio version of C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters.
  • In the late-1990s Cleese appeared in a set of poorly-received commercials for the UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's. Around the same time, his Fawlty Towers co-star, Prunella Scales, appeared in more well-received commercials for rival chain Tesco.
  • Is a vegetarian.[14][15]
  • He has enunciated a very welcome set of directions for the TomTom in-car navigation system. This allows itself humorous notes at non-critical moments, for instance when asking for a U-turn and when signing off: "I'm not going to carry your baggage — from now on, you're on your own" and "Bear right..Beaver left."
  • He plays the voice of Samuel the Sheep in the 2006 adaptation of Charlotte's Web. Samuel keeps on telling the other sheep to be individuals, not sheep. This is a reference to Monty Python's Life of Brian.
  • He has a speaking part at the end of the Alan Parsons song "Chomolungma" from the album A Valid Path.
  • In 2008 John Cleese appeared in a humorous TV commercial in Iceland advertising a bank loan.

Bibliography

  • The Rectorial Address of John Cleese, Epam, 1971, 8 pages
  • Foreword for Time and the Soul, Jacob Needleman, 2003  ISBN 1-57675-251-8 (paperback)

Scripts

  • The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation As We Know It, w/Jack Hobbs & Joseph McGrath, 1977  ISBN 0-352-30109-0
  • Fawlty Towers, w/Connie Booth, 1977 (The Builders, The Hotel Inspectors, Gourmet Night)   ISBN 0-86007-598-2
  • Fawlty Towers: Book 2, w/Connie Booth, 1979 (The Wedding Party, A Touch of Class, The Germans)
  • The Golden Skits of Wing Commander Muriel Volestrangler FRHS & Bar, 1984  ISBN 0-413-41560-0
  • The Complete Fawlty Towers, w/Connie Booth, 1988  ISBN 0-413-18390-4 (hardcover), ISBN 0-679-72127-4 (paperback)
  • A Fish Called Wanda: The Screenplay, w/Charles Crichton, 1988  ISBN 1-55783-033-9
  • Fawlty's Hotel: Sämtliche Stücke, w/Connie Booth, (The Complete Fawlty Towers in German), Haffmans Verlag AG Zürich, 1995

Dialogues

  • Families and How to Survive Them, w/A.Robin Skynner, 1983  ISBN 0-413-52640-2 (hardc.), ISBN 0-19-520466-2 (p/back)
  • Life and How to Survive It, w/A.Robin Skynner 1993  ISBN 0-413-66030-3 (hardcover), ISBN 0-393-31472-3 (paperback)
Wikinews has related news:

See also

References

  1. ^ John Cleese's father
  2. ^ San Diego Magazine, Silly Walks and Dead Parrots
  3. ^ a b c Footlights! — 'A Hundred Years of Cambridge Comedy' — Robert Hewison, Methuen London Ltd, 1983, ISBN 0-413-51150-2.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i From Fringe to Flying Circus — 'Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960–1980' — Roger Wilmut, Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1980, ISBN 0-413-46950-6.
  5. ^ List of Rectors of University of St. Andrews
  6. ^ "John Cleese in love split". The Sun. 9 January, 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-09. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ Memorial eulogy by John Cleese for Graham Chapman
  8. ^ Playbill
  9. ^ "Cleese 'retires from performing'". BBC News. 13 June 2006.
  10. ^ Michael Saul, "The Full Monty for Bam?: Cleese stumps to be his speechwriter," "New York Daily News," 4/9/2008 p3 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/04/09/2008-04-09_monty_python_icon_john_cleese_stumps_to_.html
  11. ^ "New Scientist" comment about the lemur being named after John Cleese
  12. ^ "New Scientist" and John Cleese's response to the honour
  13. ^ Mike Oldfield "Tubular Bells" reaches thirty years old... (information about John Cleese is given towards the end of the second paragraph)
  14. ^ John Cleese - Biography
  15. ^ GoVeg.com // Carrie Underwood and Kevin Eubanks Voted World's Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrities
Wikiquote has quotations related to John Cleese.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Cleese.





At Last the 1948 Show
Tim Brooke-Taylor — Graham Chapman — John Cleese — Marty Feldman — Aimi MacDonald
I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again
Tim Brooke-Taylor — John Cleese — Graeme Garden — David Hatch — Jo Kendall — Bill Oddie
Academic offices
Preceded by Rector of the University of St Andrews
1970 - 1973 		Succeeded by
Template:S-awards
Preceded by BAFTA TV Award for Best Light Entertainment Performance
1979
for Fawlty Towers 		Succeeded by
Preceded by BAFTA Award for Best Actor
1988
for A Fish Called Wanda 		Succeeded by

Template:Persondata

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Cleese&oldid=206385679"