Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August, 1957) is a British comedian, author, actor, and director. He is the son of Alan and Marianne Fry.
He was educated at Stout's Hill, Uppingham School and Queens' College, Cambridge. He lives in Norfolk (England) and London (England). He is an erstwhile comedy collaborator of Hugh Laurie. He was described as being "a man with a brain the size of Kent" in an interview with Michael Parkinson.
In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
Career highlights
Highlights of Fry's career include:
- He made an early television appearance on University Challenge while an undergraduate at Cambridge.
- In 1984, he rewrote the script of the stage musical, Me and My Girl, which subsequently became a huge West End hit.
- Very early in his West End debut (Simon Gray's play Cell Mates), Fry suffered an attack of stage fright so serious that he ran away, leaving only an apology, and turning up some days later in Belgium.
- He famously declared that he practised a celibate lifestyle (which he has since abandoned).
- He made his debut as a film director with Bright Young Things, an adaptation of the novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, in 2003.
List of works
- Films (As Director)
- Novels
- The Liar (1992)
- The Hippopotamus (1994)
- Making History (an example of alternate history) (1997) Winner of the Sidewise Award for Alternate History
- The Stars' Tennis Balls (as Revenge: A Novel in the United States) (Fry's take on The Count of Monte Cristo story (2000))
- Other books
- Paperweight (collection of articles) (1992)
- Moab is My Washpot: An Autobiography (1997)
- Rescuing the Spectacled Bear: A Peruvian Diary (2002)
- Stephen Fry's Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music (2004)
- TV scripts
- A Bit of Fry and Laurie (1989, 1990)
- A Bit More Fry and Laurie
- Fry & Laurie #3
- Three Bits of Fry and Laurie
- Fry & Laurie Bit No. 4
- Doctor Who - un-named episode commissioned for 2006 series
- Plays
- Latin! (or Tobacco and Boys.) (1979, included in Paperweight). Winner of the Fringe First at the 1980 Edinburgh Festival.
- Screenplays
- Musicals
- Me and My Girl (adapted Lupino Lane's script) (1983)
Performances
- TV programmes
- Blackadder (Mostly Blackadder II and Blackadder Goes Forth, with a cameo in Blackadder The Third)
- Whose Line Is It Anyway (the original UK version)
- A Bit of Fry and Laurie (1986 pilot, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1995)
- Jeeves and Wooster (1990-93)
- Common Pursuit (1992)
- Gormenghast (2000)
- QI (2003-onwards)
- Absolute Power (2003, 2005)
- Tom Brown's Schooldays (2005)
- Films
- A Fish Called Wanda (cameo, 1988)
- Peter's Friends (1992)
- I.Q. (1994)
- Wilde (1997)
- Spice World (1997)
- A Civil Action (1998)
- Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (1999)
- Relative Values (2000), based on Noel Coward's play
- Gosford Park (2001)
- The Discovery of Heaven
- Thunderpants (2002)
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
- Plays
- The Common Pursuit (1988)
- Cell Mates, by Simon Gray (1995)
- Radio shows
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Quandary Phase: Murray Bost Henson, BBC Radio 4
- Saturday Night Fry (1998, BBC Radio 4, six episodes)
- A Bit of Fry and Laurie (1994, BBC Radio Four, two half-hour programmes compiled from selected previously-seen sketches from the TV series)
- Absolute Power, BBC Radio Four
- Regular guest panelist on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, BBC Radio Four
- Regular guest panelist on Just a Minute, BBC Radio Four
- Has a regular slot, The Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music on Classic FM
- Played the lead, David Lander on Radio 4 series Delve Special
- 6 episode BBC radio series called Saturday Night Fry
Stephen Fry also narrates the UK audio versions of the Harry Potter books (this is Jim Dale's job in the US). He also made a guest appearance in a special webcast version of Doctor Who in a story called Death Comes to Time, in which he plays a Time Lord, the Minister of Chance. He will be writing the 11th episode of the 2006 series of Doctor Who.
Trivia
- The Stars' Tennis Balls' major characters all have names that are anagrams or other simple mutations of their counterparts in The Count of Monte Cristo:
Monte Cristo Stars' Tennis Balls Notes Edmond Dantes Ned Maddstone anagram Mercedes Portia pun: Mercedes-Benz → Porsche de Villefort Oliver Delft anagram the Abbe (Faria) the Babe (Fraser) partial anagram Fernand Mondego Gordon Fendeman anagram Noirtier Blackrow translated literally (calque) Capt. Leclere Paddy Leclare homonym Caderousse Rufus Cade translation: rousse = red = Rufus Baron Danglars Barson-Garland anagram Monte Cristo Simon Cotter anagram
- As well as having competed on University Challenge whilst at Cambridge, he also appeared in The Young Ones as "Lord Snot", one of the "Footlights College" team against whom The Young Ones are competing in a fictitious edition of University Challenge. He later appeared in a Comic Relief edition of University Challenge as part of the "Gownies" team of University-graduate comedians, against the (victorious) team of "Townies"; and in another Comic Relief special two years later as part of the South team who beat the North.
- He used to be a regular panellist on Have I Got News For You, but now refuses to appear on the show as a protest against the sacking of Angus Deayton.
- In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.
- While still at boarding school, Fry absconded with a stolen credit card and, when apprehended, spent three months in prison for fraud.
- In 2005, Fry was made an honorary fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, from which he graduated.
- Fry often expresses admiration for three other authors; Anthony Buckeridge, Douglas Adams, and P.G. Wodehouse. Their influence is noticeable in his writing style. He has appeared as Jeeves in television adaptations of Wodehouse's writings, as The Guide in the film adaptation of Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and has read Buckeridge's Jennings stories for Radio 4.
- Fry was the last ever person awarded the title of Pipe Smoker of the Year before the awards discontinuation for legal reasons.
Links
- Official Stephen Fry Web site
- Stephen Fry at IMDb
- Stephen Fry on PG Wodehouse
- Stephen Fry interview
- Stephen's doodle for National Doodle Day 2005will be auctioned on eBay on National Doodle Day, Friday 25 February 2005 to raise funds for Epilepsy Action and the Neurofibromatosis Association.
- 1957 births
- Alternate history writers
- British comedy writers
- Cambridge Footlights
- Film actors
- British actors
- British comedians
- English novelists
- Game show hosts
- Gay writers
- Gay actors
- Sidewise Award winning authors
- Television actors
- Doctor Who actors
- Doctor Who writers
- Former students of Queens' College, Cambridge