Friday, September 29, 2006

John Cleese


A tall, long-legged, and jut-jawed English comic actor/writer/producer who specialized in playing thin-skinned Establishment figures as a member of the celebrated, ground-breaking comedy troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus, John Cleese began his comedy career with The Footlights, the famed performing society at Cambridge, where he first worked with future Pythoners Eric Idle and Graham Chapman. Other members included Cleese's future collaborator (and renowned humorist and interviewer) David Frost, future director of the Royal Shakespeare Company Trevor Nunn, and future NATIONAL LAMPOON editor Tony Hendra. Though he had been studying for a career in law, Cleese began writing comedy for BBC Radio in 1963. He then met both Connie Booth (whom he would later marry) and Terry Gilliam (the future American Python member) while on tour with "The Footlights Revue" in the USA.


On returning to England, Cleese landed a job writing for TV's "The Frost Report". He and Chapman collaborated on several screenplays and teleplays (the pilot episode of the TV series, "Doctor in the House"; additional material for "The Magic Christian" 1970; "The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer" 1970) roughly contemporaneous with the formation of Monty Python's Flying Circus for BBC TV. Possibly the best-known of the Pythons, Cleese also enjoyed considerable success with a more conventional but nonetheless uproarious sitcom "Fawlty Towers" (BBC-2, 1975; BBC-2, 1979), co-written by Booth. Here he portrayed Basil Fawlty, the perpetually frustrated owner of a resort inn, as sort of a middle-class Ralph Kramden on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Cleese was also the co-founder of Video Arts Ltd., a company specializing in witty training films in which he often starred and which has become the largest training film company in the world outside the USA. Cleese also acted in and co-wrote all the Monty Python features and has appeared in films by Python alumni Terry Jones and Gilliam.

Cleese acted in a number of non-Python-related British comedies in the 80s (e.g., "Privates on Parade" 1982; "Yellowbeard" 1983; "Clockwise" 1986). He has also become a familiar face in American TV commercials and in small memorable turns in Hollywood features (i.e., "The Great Muppet Caper" 1981; Lawrence Kasdan's "Silverado" 1985; "The Big Picture" 1989; and voice work for the animated "An American Tail: Fieval Goes West" 1991). Cleese's greatest film success was "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988), a blockbuster comedy directed by Ealing Studio veteran Charles Crichton and starring Cleese (as an uptight British barrister), Jamie Lee Curtis (a sexy con artist), Kevin Kline (her macho boyfriend) and former Python Michael Palin (as a hilariously tortured animal lover). Having written the screenplay, he also served as executive producer, and the little gem that cost slightly more than $7 million to make took in more than $200 million. He later appeared to less success with Idle and Rick Moranis in "Splitting Heirs" (1993), a strained comedy in the Monty Python tradition which failed to deliver the requisite laughs.

The success of "A Fish Called Wanda" cried out for a sequel, and Cleese, his apoplectic zoo director recalling Basil Fawlty, reunited with his "Wanda" co-stars for "Fierce Creatures" (1997), a pleasant enough farce but hardly the "equal" of "Wanda". The year before had provided a little seen gem reuniting four of the original six Python members (Idle, Cleese, Jones, Palin), Terry Jones' live-action take on Kenneth Grahame's 1908 classic "The Wind in the Willows". The ensemble including Steve Coogan and Nicol Williamson ably tackled its animal story for children and adult satire of British class pretensions, but despite rave reviews, Columbia Pictures declined to promote it, having received its distribution rights (but not its video rights) as part of an arbitrated award in a lawsuit with Disney. Cleese, who can still be seen in the occasional commercial, had a banner year in 1999, playing an obnoxious hotel clerk with a penchant for women's clothes in the remake of "The Out-of-Towners" and Simon & Schuster head Dick Snyder in the Jacqueline Susann biopic "Isn't She Great", not to mention taking his first turn on Her Majesty's Secret Service as R, the apprentice gadget-master to Q (Desmond Llewelyn) in a James Bond pic, "The World Is Not Enough", featuring cameos from more than a dozen glamorous Bond girls from pictures past.

In 2002, Cleese may have intially smarted from his ratings-impaired and critically drubbed sitcom "Wednesday at 9:30 (8:30 Central)" and an appearence in one of the year's biggest bombs, "The Adventures of Pluto Nash," but he ended the year on a triumphant high note with two hugely popular films. He portrayed Nearly Headless Nick in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002), a character that he first introduced in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" (2001). He was then seen in the James Bond action feature "Die Another Day"(2002), his second Bond movie and the first in the role of Q (with the passing of Llewelyn). This time around Cleese brought even more of his trademark cheek and disdain to the part. The comedian's talents were woefully underused in his turn as Lucy Liu's staid father in "Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle" (2003), in a thin, juvenile "Three's Company"-style subplot in the otherwise fun romp. In 2003 Cleese joined the cast of NBC's hit sit-com "Will & Grace" in a delightful recurring role as Lyle "Finney" Finster, the paramour of Karen Walker (Megan Mullally) and the father of Karen's arch-nemesis (Minnie Driver). The actor also lent his haughty tones to the voice of King Harold, father of Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz) in the CGI sequel "Shrek 2" (2004).

Cleese and the other surviving members of the Python troupe gave their blessing to Eric Idle's Broadway production of "Spamalot," a stage musical drawn from their 1975 film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." The 2005 debut earned rave reviews and broke box office records, and although Cleese did not appear in person, he was the only Python in the cast as he provided the voice of God for the original production.

A longtime outspoken advocate and activist for animals, Cleese inspired researchers in 2005 to name a newly discovered species of Madagascar lemur after him: the avahi cleesei.


  • Also Credited As:
    John Marwood Cleese, John Otto Cleese

  • Born:
    on 10/27/1939 in Weston-Super-Mare, England

  • Job Titles:
    Actor, Screenwriter, Author, Producer, Director, Teacher


Education


  • Clifton College, Bristol, England, 1953-58

Milestones


  • 1958 Taught at St. Peter's Prep School
  • 1962 Appeared in "The Footlights Revue", directed by Trevor Nunn; played for five months in the West End
  • 1963 Joined BBC Radio writing sketches for the "Dick Emery Show"
  • 1964 Appeared in New Zealand and New York (on- and off-Broadway, as well as on "The Ed Sullivan Show", CBS) with "Footlights Revue"
  • 1966 Began working on BBC-TV's "The Frost Report"
  • 1968 First screen credit in collaboration with Graham Chapman ("additional material"), "The Magic Christian"
  • 1968 Screen acting debut in "The Bliss of Mrs. Blossom"
  • 1969 Debut of the BBC's "Monty Python's Flying Circus", aired in the United States on PBS
  • 1970 Feature film screenwriting debut (with Graham Chapman), "The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer"; also acted in film
  • 1971 First Monty Python film, "And Now for Something Completely Different"
  • 1971 Formed Video Arts Limited to make industrial training films
  • 1971 With Chapman, wrote the pilot episode of "Doctor in the House", a British sitcom syndicated in the US
  • 1972 Began making TV commercials
  • 1975 Back with the gang for "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"
  • 1979 Offended all religions equally in irreverent Python pic "The Life of Brian"
  • 1979 Stage directed sequences for "The Secret Policeman's Ball", a comedy performance documentary
  • 1981 Starred as Robin Hood in Terry Gilliam's "Time Bandits"
  • 1983 Reteamed with his pals for "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life"
  • 1985 Delivered memorable turn as Sheriff Langston in "Silverado"; first screen collaboration with Kevin Kline
  • 1986 Starred as a school headmaster obsessed with punctuality in "Clockwise"; his tour de force performance was the saving grace of a very thin script
  • 1987 First American TV guest spot, "Cheers"; won an Emmy
  • 1988 First feature film as producer, "A Fish Called Wanda", directed by Crichton; Cleese received an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay; co-star Kline won Best Supporting Actor Oscar
  • 1991 Voiced Cat R. Waul for the animated "An American Tail: Feivel Goes West"
  • 1994 Portrayed Professor Waldman in "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein"
  • 1995 Brought back the crew from "A Fish Called Wanda" in the less satisfying (but still funny) "Fierce Creatures"; Cleese essentially repeated his "Fawlty Towers" role as the apoplectic director of the Marwood Zoo
  • 1997 Voiced Ape, the mentor and father figure of Brendan Fraser's "George of the Jungle"
  • 1999 Essayed R in James Bond pic "The World Is Not Enough", directed by Michael Apted
  • 1999 Performance as obnoxious hotel clerk Mr. Mersault in the remake of "The Out-of-Towners" again recalled Basil Fawlty, this time in his element (although more upscale)
  • 1999 Portrayed fictionalized version of Simon & Schuster head Dick Snyder (called Henry Marcus) in "Isn't She Great", starring Bette Midler as pulp novelist
  • 2001 Appered in the large ensemble comedy "Rat Race," a throwback to the star-packed comedies of the 1960s
  • 2001 Played Nearly Headless Nick in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"
  • 2002 Appeared in the Eddie Murphy sci-fi comedy bomb "The Adventures of Pluto Nash"
  • 2002 Promoted to the role of Q in next Bond outing, "Die Another Day"
  • 2002 Returned as Nearly Headless Nick in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."
  • 2002 Starred as the owner of a TV network in the ABC comedy "Wednesday 9:30 (8:30 Central)"
  • 2003 Cast as the father of Alex (Lucy Liu) in "Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle"
  • 2004 Appeared in a few episodes of "Will and Grace," playing the father of Minnie Driver's character and the love interest of Karen; received an Emmy nomination for Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Series
  • 2004 Cast as The Balloon Man in the Disney live action feature "Around the World in 80 Days"
  • 2004 Voiced Fiona's Father, King Harold in the animated feature "Shrek 2"
  • 2005 Will take his one-man show, "Seven Ways to Skin an Ocelot," on tour begining in New Zealand (november)
  • Brought former Ealing Studio director Charles Crichton to Video Arts Ltd. to direct training films
  • Co-created, co-wrote (with then-wife Connie Booth) and starred in British TV series "Fawlty Towers"
  • Joined The Footlights, a performing group at Cambridge
  • Worked with Crichton on 17 short films

 


 


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