The Meaning of Life

John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a... scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s he became a member of Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus and the four Monty Python films: And Now for Something Completely Different, The Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and The Meaning of Life. In the mid 1970s, Cleese and his first wife, Connie Booth, co-wrote and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Later, he co-starred with Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis, and former Python colleague Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. He also starred in Clockwise, and has appeared in many other films, including two James Bond films as Q, two Harry Potter films, and three Shrek films. With Yes Minister writer Antony Jay he co-founded Video Arts, a production company making entertaining training films. Cleese was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, the only child of Muriel Evelyn , and Reginald Francis Cleese , who worked in insurance sales.
more

Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy... troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys . The only "Python" not born in Britain, he took British citizenship in 1968. Gilliam was born in Medicine Lake, Minnesota, the son of Beatrice and James Hall Gilliam, who was a traveling salesman for Folgers before becoming a carpenter. The family moved to Panorama City, California, in 1952. Gilliam attended Birmingham High School where he was class president and senior prom King, was voted "Most Likely to Succeed", and achieved straight A's. During high school, he began to avidly read Mad magazine, which was then edited by Harvey Kurtzman; this later influenced his work. Gilliam later spoke to Salman Rushdie about defining experiences in the 1960s that would set the foundations for his views on the world, later influencing his art and career: Terry Gilliam started his career as an animator and strip cartoonist.
more

Eric Idle is an English comedian, actor, author, singer, writer, and comedic composer. He was as a member of the British surreal comedy group Monty... Python, a member of the The Rutles on Saturday Night Live and the author of the Broadway play, Spamalot. Idle was born in South Shields, County Durham in Harton Village, the son of Nora Barron , a health visitor, and Ernest Idle. His father served in the Royal Air Force and survived World War II, only to be killed in a hitch-hiking accident on Christmas Eve 1945. His mother had difficulty coping with a full-time job and raising a child, so when Eric was seven, she enrolled him into the Royal Wolverhampton School as a boarder. At this time the school was a charitable foundation dedicated to the education and maintenance of children who had lost one or both parents. Idle is quoted as saying: "It was a physically abusive, bullying, harsh environment for a kid to grow up in. I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority. Perfect training for Python.
more

Terence Graham Parry Jones is a Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director, children's author, political commentator, and TV host. He is... best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team. Jones was born in Colwyn Bay, Wales. The family home was named "Bodchwil". His father was stationed with the RAF in India. When Jones was four-and-a-half, the family moved to Surrey. Jones was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Guildford, where he was head boy in the 1960-61 academic year. He read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, but "strayed into history". He graduated with a 2:1. While there, he performed comedy with future Monty Python castmate Michael Palin in The Oxford Revue. Jones appeared in Twice a Fortnight with Palin, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, as well as the television series The Complete and Utter History of Britain . He appeared in Do Not Adjust Your Set with Palin, Eric Idle and David Jason. He wrote for The Frost Report and several other David Frost programmes on British television. Along with Palin, he wrote lyrics for the 1968 Barry Booth album "Diversions".
more

Michael Edward Palin, CBE, FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy... group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries. Palin wrote most of his comedic material with Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows such as the Ken Dodd Show, The Frost Report and Do Not Adjust Your Set. Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including "Argument Clinic", "Dead Parrot", "The Lumberjack Song", and "The Spanish Inquisition". Palin continued to work with Jones after Python, co-writing Ripping Yarns. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in other films such as A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedians' Comedian, he was voted the 30th favourite by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. After Python, he began a new career as a travel writer and travel documentarian.
more

John Du Prez is a musician, conductor, and composer. Du Prez was a member of the 1980s multi-hit Salsa-driven pop band Modern Romance and has since... written several Film scores including Oxford Blues and the final Carry On film, Carry On Columbus . He contributed to The Wild soundtrack. Du Prez originally hails from Sheffield, England, a town that has spawned a variety of musicians including Joe Cocker, Def Leppard, Glenn Gregory and Martyn Ware aka Heaven 17, Philip Oakey and The Human League, and Pulp. He received his MA , B.Mus., ARCM, and was a Trevelyan Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford. In 1976 he joined the staff of the London University's Music Department before becoming a full-time composer. He would then begin a 30-year working relationship with Eric Idle. Du Prez has often worked with Eric Idle for the music for Monty Python, most notably the score for Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and A Fish Called Wanda.
more