John Cleese

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9.6 Superb
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Biography

Recent Role:
Himself on The Graham Norton Show
Gender:
Male
Birthplace:
Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, England, UK
Birth Name:
John Mawrwood Cleese
AKA:
John Otto Cleese, Nigel Farquhar-Bennett, Kim Bread
Member of the comedy group Monty Python. Co-wrote several episodes of Doctor in the House (1969) and its sequels with Graham Chapman, and also wrote some later episodes as sole author.
As a child he was often mocked for his extreme height but managed to counter teasing with humour. At a young age he would also write down all the funny things he ever heard in a little blue book.
John Cleese was a cast member of the highly successful BBC Radio show I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, which ran 1965-74. His fellow cast members were Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme

… More Garden, Bill Oddie, David Hatch and Jo Kendall. It was in this radio show that Cleese's famous Ferret Song (later sung on the television series At Last the 1948 Show) was first heard.
Went to the United States with the Footlights stage show Cambridge Circus in 1964, and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.
His most successful post-Python efforts included Fawlty Towers (BBC-2, 1975 and 1979). Patterned after an actual hotel in southwest England (where he had stayed while filming Python), Cleese excelled as Basil Fawlty, the irate hotel manager.
According to Brian Henson (I), when Cleese guest starred on The Muppet Show in the late '70s, he enjoyed the show very much and became very close with the writers because he wanted to get involved in the writing. When he did get involved with the writing, he and the other writers came up with a concept where Cleese was being held against his will on the show and would try to get off the show while the Muppets were trying to get him to do his scheduled bits. Of course, in this case, life did not imitate art, as a few years later, Cleese appeared again with the Muppets in the film The Great Muppet Caper (1981).
Cleese found his psychotherapy of immense value after his divorce from Connie Booth. He and his therapist, Robin Skynner, co-wrote the 1983 bestseller Families and How to Survive Them, a series of dialogues on human emotions. Their long-awaited sequel, Life and How to Survive It, came out in 1995. John also went out on a limb by publishing his sketch work under the joke name The Golden Skits of Wing-Commander Muriel Volestrangler FRHS and Bar.
But his greatest film success came with his 1988 script A Fish Called Wanda, which co-starred fellow Python Michael Palin, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline. The film made $55 million in America alone.
Said he was be the first person to say the S-word on British television, and became the first person ever at a British memorial service to use the F-word, when he eulogized fellow Python Graham Chapman in December 1989.
John Cleese has also become a well-respected author and has co-written such books as Families And How to Survive Them and Life And How to Survive It. He was Rector of the University of Saint Andrews from 1973 until 1976 and continues to be a professor at large of Cornell University in New York.

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  •  
    9 Superb
    If someone thinks of Britain; they think of Tea, Big Ben, The Queen and John Cleese. hide show

    What can anyone say about this guy?

    Whether he's acting, doing stand - up or simply writing he exhibits talent and and a natural funniness that many wish they had.

    His freakish height, distinctive voice and aura of upper - class has left marks in many areas of show biz. As the uptight hotel manager in Fawlty Towers, the downtrodden Archie Leach in the classic "A Fish Called Wanda", the nearlyheadless ghost in Harry Potter and who could forget the Monty Python TV series and movies where he played almost every possible persona known to mankind.

    Even in his twilight years; his physicality may've decreased but his newly acquired "grumpy old man" view has become his latest fame. John Cleese has entertained and inspired for decades and shows no sign or capability of quitting.

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    oceanic6 Added Dec 30, 2008 All my reviews
  •  
    8 Great
    John Cleese is a very funny man! hide show

    John Cleese is a very funny man! I like Fawlty Towers that he does when he is the hotel manager Basil Fawlty and he does a lot of funny things. Also it was funny when he did the top 100 best movis and at the end the people at the cenima were walking out pushing him out of the way. Even in a James Bond film that I saw it is very funny at the bits he comes on. I think he was doing a science thing or something, I can't remember now. So John cleese is a very funny man which i'll give 8 out of 10.

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    01milnej Added Feb 17, 2008 All my reviews
  •  
    9 Superb
    empty hide show

    John Cleese is a true actor. He can pull off the comedic roles just as well as he can pull off the dramatic roles. You really believe that he got into acting because he loves it for what it is. You'll never see him in any tabloids and you won't hear any gossip about him. In his roles, you sense more realism than many other actor's who are considered more talented than he. Of all of his roles in all of his movies, my favorite has to be his role of the new "Q" in the Bond films.

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    amauriel Added Feb 24, 2007 All my reviews
  •  
    8 Great
    empty hide show

    Good actor and his style is very funny. I really like the way he acts and the way he does his things, he is a very good comedian and all of his movies are very funny. I like him more like this guy with extreme power and confidence which is always something great when he is the one doing this. Great actor!

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    NoOneIsAlone Added Feb 16, 2007 All my reviews
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    10 Perfect
    empty hide show

    Monty Python 'himself'... John Cleese is great. Whether he's in movies or films, he's funny as ever and the strangest python.

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    GoldenLiberator Added Feb 7, 2007 All my reviews
 

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