John Cleese

John Marwood Cleese (/ˈkliːz/ KLEEZ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and television presenter. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report (1966–1967). In the late 1960s, he cofounded Monty Python, the comedy troupe that created the surreal sketch comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974). Along with his Python costars Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, Cleese starred in the films Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), and The Meaning of Life (1983).

Cleese and his first wife Connie Booth cowrote the television sitcom Fawlty Towers (1975–1979), in which he starred as hotel owner Basil Fawlty, which earned him the 1980 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance. In 2000, the show topped the BFI TV 100, and in a 2001 Channel 4 poll, Basil was ranked second on its list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters.

Cleese wrote and starred in the heist comedy film A Fish Called Wanda (1988), for which he received Academy Award, British Academy Film Award, and Golden Globe award nominations, and its quasi-sequel Fierce Creatures (1997). He has also starred in Time Bandits (1981), Silverado (1985), Clockwise (1986), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), George of the Jungle (1997), Rat Race (2001), Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008). His prominent franchise film roles include R and Q in the James Bond films The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002), Nearly Headless Nick in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), and the last three Shrek films (2004–2010). He received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for Cheers (1987) and was nominated for 3rd Rock from the Sun (1998) and Will & Grace (2004).

Cleese has specialised in political and religious satire, dark humour, sketch comedy, and surreal humour. He was ranked the second best comedian ever in a 2005 Channel 4 poll of fellow comedians. He cofounded Video Arts, a production company making entertaining training films as well as The Secret Policeman's Ball benefit shows to raise funds for the human rights organisation Amnesty International. Formerly a staunch supporter of the Liberal Democrats, in 1999, he turned down an offer from the party to nominate him for a life peerage.