John Cleese Totally Explained

Everything about John Cleese totally explained

John Marwood Cleese (; born October 27, 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, the son of Muriel (née Cross), an acrobat, and Reginald Francis Cleese, who worked in insurance sales. His family's surname was previously "Cheese", but his father changed his surname to "Cleese" in 1915, upon joining the army.
   Cleese was educated at St Peter's Preparatory School, Weston-super-Mare where he was a star pupil, receiving a prize for English and doing well at sports including cricket and boxing. At 13 he received an exhibition to Clifton College, an english public school in Bristol, he was a tall child and was well over 6ft when he arrived there. Whilst at the school he's said to have defaced the school grounds for a prank by painting footsteps to suggest that the school's statue of Field Marshal Earl Haig had got down from his plinth and gone to the toilet.. Cleese played cricket for the first team and after initial indifference he did well academically, passing 8 O levels and 3 A levels in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry.
   After leaving school he went back to his prep school to teach science before taking up a place he'd won at Downing College, Cambridge where he read Law and joined the Cambridge Footlights Revue Review. It was there that he met his future writing partner Graham Chapman. Cleese wrote extra material for the 1961 Footlights Revue I Thought I Saw It Move, 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! 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've 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 didn't 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.
   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.
   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 isn't 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'd separated.
   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'".
   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, featuring his likeness and voice. Cleese didn't appear in the subsequent Bond film, Casino Royale, and it's 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 of the United States", 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 ". 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 . 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". 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. This was an erroneous story, the result of an interview with The Times of London (the piece wasn't 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 Pink Panther Deux 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 and offering his services as a speechwriter.

Radio credits

I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again

Television credits

The Frost Report (1966)

Frost on Sunday

At Last the 1948 Show

The Avengers (1968, guest appearance as Marcus Rugman (egg clown-face collector) in the episode Look (Stop Me if You've Heard this One)...)

The Goodies (1973, guest cameo appearance as a Genie in the episode The Goodies and the Beanstalk).

Doctor Who (1979, guest cameo appearance as an Art Lover in the episode City of Death as a favour to writer / script editor Douglas Adams)

How to Irritate People (1968) with Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Connie Booth and Tim Brooke-Taylor

Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974)

Fawlty Towers (1975, 1979)

The Taming of the Shrew, as Petruchio (1980)

Cheers (episode "Simon Says"), he won an Emmy Award for best actor in a guest starring role (1987).

3rd Rock from the Sun (1998–2001) as recurring character Dr. Liam Neesam.

The Human Face (2001) Cleese was the host of this 4 episode BBC documentary. It also featured Michael Palin, Elizabeth Hurley, David Attenborough, Pierce Brosnan, Paul Ekman, and Dacher Keltner, among others.

(2002) as Red

Will & Grace (2003-2004) as recurring character Lyle Finster.

Monty Python's Flying Circus, John Cleese's Personal Best (At the beginning of the episode, the show was dedicated to "Mr. John Cleese, who has recently died". A lot of Monty Python fans were saddened for his demise. It turned out it was just part of a skit; John Cleese was portraying himself as a 97-year-old, senile, old man who is being interviewed by a newswoman before succumbing to a heart attack.)

Hosted the TV show Wine for the Confused

Numerous commercials, including for supermarket chain Sainsbury's, snack firm Planters and a British government Stop Smoking campaign

Party political broadcasts for the Liberal Democrats and predecessor, the SDP-Liberal Alliance

Song "Don't Mention The World Cup" animated video

played on ITV, BBC and Channel 4 News June 2006

Host of the PBS series The Human Face (2007)

as Neville Chamberlain

Filmography

Interlude (1968)

The Magic Christian (1969) (had written w/ Chapman an earlier version of the script, of which only the scenes they appear in survived)

The Best House in London (1969)

The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970) (writer and actor)

And Now for Something Completely Different (1971) (writer and actor)

Romance with a Double Bass (1974) (writer and actor)

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974) (writer and actor: Sir Lancelot, Tim the Enchanter, swallow obsessed guard #2, Peasant #1, the Black Knight, French Taunter, body cart customer)

Meetings, Bloody Meetings (1976) (a humorous business-oriented training video)

The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977) (Arthur Sherlock Holmes, a descendant of the original)

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) (writer and actor: various roles including Reg)

The Secret Policeman's Ball (1980)

The Great Muppet Caper (1981)

Time Bandits (1981) (as a gormless Robin Hood)

Privates on Parade (1982) (Major Giles Flack)

Yellowbeard (1983) (Blind Pew)

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) (writer and actor) (various roles)

Silverado (1985) (plays Langston an English sheriff in a town in the western USA. His first line, as he walks in to a bar to break up a brawl, is, "What's all this, then?")

Clockwise (1986) (as Mr. Stimpson, a school headmaster)

A Fish Called Wanda (1988) (writer and actor) (as lawyer Archie Leach (Cary Grant's real name))

Erik the Viking (1989) (as Halfdan the Black)

Bullseye! (1990) (as Man on the Beach in Barbados Who Looks Like John Cleese)

(1991) (Cat R. Waul)

Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? (1992) (Narrator

Splitting Heirs (1993) (Raoul P. Shadgrind)

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Disney's Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1994) (Dr. Julien Plumford)

The Swan Princess (1994) (Jean-Bob)

The Wind in the Willows (1996) (as Mr. Toad's lawyer)

Fierce Creatures (1996) (as Rollo Lee, manager of an English zoo; the novelization suggests that he's actually the twin brother of Archie Leach from A Fish Called Wanda, with a slight change of surname)

George of the Jungle (1997) (as the voice of an ape named Ape)

The Out-of-Towners (1999 film) (1999) (as Mr. Mersault, the hotel manager)

The World Is Not Enough (1999) (a James Bond film) (as Q's assistant, nicknamed R by Bond)

Isn't She Great (2000)

Quantum Project (2001) (as father of Stephen Dorff's character)

narrator

Rat Race (2001) (as eccentric millionaire Donald P. Sinclair)

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) ("Nearly Headless Nick")

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) ("Nearly Headless Nick")

Die Another Day (2002) (second appearance in a James Bond film; replaces Desmond Llewelyn as Q in the series)

(2003) (Father of Alex)

Scorched (2003) (Local Millionaire)

George of the Jungle 2 (2003) (as the voice of an ape named Ape)

Shrek 2 (2004) (voice of Princess Fiona's father, King Harold)

Around the World in 80 Days (2004) (Grizzled Sergeant)

Valiant (2005) (voice of captured pigeon, Mercury)

Charlotte's Web (2006) (voice of Samuel the sheep)

Man About Town (2006) (Dr. Primkin)

Shrek the Third (2007) (King Harold)

Igor (2008) (Dr. Glickenstein) (voice)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) (Dr. Barnhardt)

Crood Awakening (2008) (Alvan) Voice (also writer)

The Pink Panther Deux (2009) (Inspector Charles Dreyfus) Video game credits

Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time (1994) 7th Level

Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail (1996) 7th Level

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1997) Panasonic

Starship Titanic (1998) Simon & Schuster Interactive (voice of the Bomb) — (Credited as Kim Bread)

007 Racing (2000) Electronic Arts

The World Is Not Enough (video game) (2000) Electronic Arts

Everything or Nothing (video game) (2004) Electronic Arts

(2004) Atari

Jade Empire (2005) BioWare (as Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard)
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.

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.

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 Poland advertising a bank loan.

From 2006-2008 John Cleese has appeared in humorous TV commercials in Iceland advertising Kaupþing.
Honours and tributes

A species of lemur, Avahi cleesei, has been named in his honour. John Cleese mentioned this in television interviews. Also there's mention of this honour in "New Scientist"—and John Cleese's response to the honour.

An asteroid, 9618 Johncleese, is named in his honour.

Cleese declined a CBE (Commander of The British Empire) in 1996.

There is a municipal rubbish heap of 45 metres (148 ft) in altitude that has been named Mt Cleese at the Awapuni landfill just outside Palmerston North after he dubbed the city "suicide capital of New Zealand."

The "Unamunda" skit from All in the Timing, a collection of short plays by David Ives, centers around a fictional language (Unamunda) in which the word for the English language is "johncleese."
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)Further Information
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