Stephen Fry

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Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English humorist, writer, wit, actor, novelist, filmmaker and television presenter. As one half of the Fry and Laurie double act with his comedy partner, Hugh Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster. He is also famous for his roles in Blackadder and Wilde, and as the host of QI. In addition to writing for stage, screen, television and radio, he has contributed columns and articles for numerous newspapers and magazines, and has written four successful novels and an autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot.

[edit] Early life

Fry was born in Hampstead, London, the son of Marianne Eve (née Newman) and Alan John Fry, who was an English physicist and inventor.^[1][2] His maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Central Europe,^[3] and his mother's aunt and cousins were killed in Auschwitz concentration camp.^[2] Fry grew up in the village of Booton near Reepham, Norfolk, having moved from Chesham, Buckinghamshire when very young.

Fry briefly attended Cawston Primary School, Cawston, Norfolk, described later in his 1997 book Moab Is My Washpot^[4] before going on to Stouts Hill Preparatory School, and then to Uppingham School, Rutland, where he joined Fircroft house. He was expelled from Uppingham when he was fifteen, and subsequently from the Paston School. At seventeen, after leaving Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen from a family friend, and as a result spent three months in Pucklechurch Prison for fraud.^[5] Following his release he resumed education at Norwich City College, promising administrators that he would study rigorously to sit the Cambridge entrance exams. He passed well enough to gain a scholarship to Queens' College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, Fry gained a degree in English literature, joined the Cambridge Footlights, and appeared on University Challenge.^[6] As a member of the Footlights, he also met his future comedy collaborator, Hugh Laurie.

[edit] Career

[edit] Television

Fry's career in television began with the 1982 broadcasting of The Cellar Tapes, the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue written by Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. The revue caught the attention of Granada Television, who, keen to replicate the success of the BBC's Not the Nine O'Clock News, hired Fry, Laurie and Thompson to star alongside Ben Elton in There's Nothing To Worry About! A second series, re-titled Alfresco, was broadcast in 1983 and a third in 1984; it established Fry and Laurie's reputation as a comedy double act. In 1983, the BBC offered them their own show, which became The Crystal Cube, a mixture of science fiction and mock documentary that was axed after the first episode. Undeterred, Fry and Laurie appeared in an episode of The Young Ones in 1984, and Fry in Ben Elton's 1985 series, Happy Families.

Forgiving Fry and Laurie for The Crystal Cube, the BBC commissioned a sketch show in 1986 that was to become A Bit of Fry and Laurie. The programme ran for 26 episodes spanning four series between 1986 and 1995, and was very successful. During this time Fry starred in Blackadder II as Lord Melchett, Blackadder the Third as the Duke of Wellington, and notably in Blackadder Goes Forth as General Melchett. In 1988, he became a regular contestant on the popular improvisational comedy radio show Whose Line Is It Anyway?. However, when it moved to television, he only appeared three times: twice in the first series and once in the ninth.

Between 1990 and 1993, Fry starred as Jeeves (alongside Hugh Laurie's Bertie Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster, 23 hour-long adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse's novels and short stories.

In 2003, he began hosting QI, an intellectual panel game that has become one of the most-watched entertainment programmes on British television.^[7] In 2006, he won the Rose d'Or award for Best Game Show Host for his work on the series.^[8]

A foray into documentary-making has seen Fry fronting the Emmy Award-winning The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive in 2006, and in 2007 a documentary on the subject of HIV and AIDS, HIV and Me. Also in 2006, he appeared in the genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are?, tracing his family tree to discover his Slovak Jewish ancestry. He has filmed a six-part travel series entitled Stephen Fry in America for broadcast in 2008.^[9] A five-part companion series, More Fry in America, has been commissioned for BBC Four; it will feature in-depth essays that Fry couldn't include in the former documentary because of time constraints.^[10]

As of 2008, Fry is appearing in, and is executive producer for, the second series of legal drama Kingdom. He has also taken up a recurring guest role as psychiatrist Dr. Gordon Wyatt in the popular American drama Bones. While filming in Brazil for the series Last Chance to See, Fry broke his right arm.^[11]

On 7 May 2008, Fry gave a speech as part of a series of BBC lectures on the future of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom,^[12] which he later recorded for a podcast.^[13]

[edit] Film

Having made his film debut in the 1985 film The Good Father, Fry had a brief appearance in A Fish Called Wanda (in which he is knocked out by Kevin Kline who is posing as an airport security man) and then appeared in the lead role for Kenneth Branagh's Peter's Friends in 1992. Portraying Oscar Wilde (a man of whom he had been a fan since the age of 13) in the 1997 film Wilde, he fulfilled to critical acclaim a role that he has said he was "born to play". In 2001, he played the detective in Robert Altman's period costume drama, Gosford Park.

In 2003, Fry made his directorial debut with Bright Young Things, adapted by himself from Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies. In 2001, he began hosting the BAFTA Film Awards, a role from which he stepped down in 2006.^[14] Later that same year, he wrote the English libretto and dialogue for Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of The Magic Flute.

Fry continues to make regular film appearances, notably in treatments of literary cult classics. He served as narrator in a film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and in 2005 he appeared in both A Cock and Bull Story, based on Tristram Shandy, and V for Vendetta.^[15] In 2006, he played the role of gadget-master Smithers in Stormbreaker, and in 2007 he appeared as himself hosting a quiz in St Trinian's. In 2007, Fry wrote a script for a remake of The Dam Busters for director Peter Jackson.^[16]

[edit] Radio

Fry became famous to radio listeners with the creation of his supposed alter-ego, Donald Trefusis, whose "wireless essays" were broadcast on the Radio 4 programme Loose Ends. In 1988, Fry wrote and presented a renowned six-part comedy series entitled Saturday Night Fry; frequent radio appearances have ensued (notably on panel games Just a Minute and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue). In 2000, he began starring as Charles Prentiss in the Radio 4 comedy Absolute Power, reprising the role for three further series on radio and two on television.

In 2007, he hosted Current Puns, an exploration into wordplay, and Radio 4: This Is Your Life, to celebrate the radio station's 40th anniversary. He also interviewed Tony Blair as part of a series of podcasts released by 10 Downing Street.^[17]

In February 2008, Fry began presenting podcasts entitled Stephen Fry's Podgrams, in which he recounts his life and recent experiences.^[13] In July 2008, Fry appeared as himself in I Love Stephen Fry, an Afternoon Play for Radio 4 written by former Fry and Laurie script editor Jon Canter.^[18]

In August 2008 he hosted Fry's English Delight, a three part series on BBC Radio 4 about Metaphor^[19].

[edit] Theatre

Fry wrote a play entitled Latin! (or Tobacco and Boys) for the 1980 Edinburgh Festival, where it won the "Fringe First" prize. The Cellar Tapes, the Footlights Revue of the following year, won the Perrier Comedy Award. In 1984, Fry adapted the hugely successful 1930s musical, Me and My Girl, for the West End, where it ran for eight years. He also famously starred in Simon Gray's 1995 play, Cell Mates, from which he left three days into the West End run, pleading stage fright. He later recalled the incident as a hypomanic episode in his documentary on bipolar disorder. In 2007, Fry wrote a Christmas pantomime, Cinderella, which ran at London's Old Vic Theatre.^[20]

[edit] Literature

Since the publication of his first novel, The Liar, Fry has written three additional novels, several non-fiction works and an autobiography, all of which have been much acclaimed by critics. Making History is arguably Fry's most controversial book^{[citation needed]}: set in an alternative universe inspired by Daniel Goldhagen's theses, it advances the argument that the Holocaust, or rather something with similar effects, would have occurred regardless of Hitler's existence.

Fry's most recent book, The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, is a guide to writing poetry. In the United Kingdom, he is a well-known narrator of audiobooks, notably the Harry Potter series.^[21] He has recorded audio versions of works by Roald Dahl, Michael Bond, A. A. Milne, Anthony Buckeridge and Douglas Adams, as well as several of his own books.

When writing a book review for Tatler, Fry wrote under an alias, Williver Hendry, editor of A Most Peculiar Friendship: The Correspondence of Lord Alfred Douglas and Jack Dempsey, a field close to Fry's heart as an Oscar Wilde enthusiast. Once a columnist in The Listener and The Daily Telegraph, he now writes a weekly technology column in the Saturday edition of The Guardian. His blog attracted over 300,000 visitors in its first two weeks of existence.^[9]

[edit] Acclaim

[edit] Personal life

Fry struggled to keep his homosexuality secret during his teenage years at public school, and was celibate for 16 years from 1979 until 1995.^[31][32] When asked about when he knew he was homosexual he quotes an old friend and says, "I suppose it all began when I came out of the womb. I looked back up at my mother and thought to myself, 'That's the last time I'm coming out of one of those.' " Fry currently lives in London with his partner, Daniel Colvin, whom he met in 1995.^{[citation needed]} He famously drives a former 1988 London black cab. He also has a second home in West Bilney, near King's Lynn, Norfolk.

Fry has been diagnosed with cyclothymia.^[33] He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1995 while appearing in a West End play called Cell Mates and subsequently walked out of the production, prompting its early closure and incurring the displeasure of co-star Rik Mayall and playwright Simon Gray. Mayall's comedy partner, Adrian Edmondson, made light of the subject in his and Mayall's second Bottom live show. After walking out of the production, Fry went missing for several days while contemplating suicide. He abandoned the idea and left the United Kingdom by ferry, eventually resurfacing in Belgium.^[34]

Fry has spoken publicly about his experience with bipolar disorder, which was also depicted in the documentary Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic-Depressive.^[35] In the programme, he interviewed other sufferers of the illness including celebrities Carrie Fisher, Richard Dreyfuss and Tony Slattery. Also featured were chef Rick Stein, whose father committed suicide, Robbie Williams, who talks of his experience with major depression, and comedienne/former mental health nurse Jo Brand.

Fry was an active supporter of the British Labour Party for many years, and appeared in a party political broadcast on its behalf with Hugh Laurie and Michelle Collins in November, 1993. Despite this, he did not vote in the 2005 General Election because of the stance of both the Labour and Conservative parties with regard to the Iraq War. Despite his praising of the current government for social reform, Fry has been critical of the Labour Party's "Third Way" concept. He is on cordial terms with Prince Charles (despite a mild parody Fry performed in his role of King Charles I in the comedy programme Blackadder: The Cavalier Years), through his work with the Prince's Trust. He attended the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Camilla Parker-Bowles in 2005.

Fry is a friend of British comedian and actor (and Blackadder co-star) Rowan Atkinson and was best man at Atkinson's wedding to Sunetra Sastry at the Russian Tea Room in New York City. He was also a friend of British actor John Mills.^[36] He was best man at the wedding of Hugh Laurie (whom he considers to be his best friend ^[37]) and is godfather to all three of Laurie's children.

A fan of cricket, Fry is related to former England cricketer C.B. Fry,^[38] and was recently interviewed for the Ashes Fever DVD, reporting on England's victory against Australia in the 2005 Ashes series. Regarding football, he is a supporter of Norwich City (as mentioned in Ashes Fever), and is a regular visitor to Carrow Road.

He has been described as "deeply dippy for all things digital", claims to have owned the second Macintosh sold in the UK (the first going to Douglas Adams) and to have never encountered a smartphone that he has not bought.^[39] He counts Wikipedia among his favourite websites "because I like to find out that I died, and that I'm currently in a ballet in China, and all the other very accurate and important things that the Wikipedia site brings us all."^[40]

Fry has a long interest in internet production, including his own website since 1997. His current site, The Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry, has existed since 2002 and has attracted many visitors following his first blog in September 2007, which comprised a 6,500 word "blessay" on smartphones. In February 2008 Fry launched his private podcast series, Stephen Fry's Podgrams, and a forum, including discussions on depression and activities in which Fry is involved. The website content is created by Stephen Fry and produced by Andrew Sampson. Fry is also a supporter^[41] of GNU and the Free Software Foundation. For the 25th anniversary of the GNU operating system, Fry appeared in a video explaining some of the philosophy behind GNU by likening it to the sharing found in science.^[42]

On 30 April 2008, Fry signed an open letter, published in The Guardian newspaper by some well known Jewish personalities, stating their opposition to celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel.^[43]

[edit] Health

[edit] List of works

[edit] Written works

[edit] Performances

[edit] Directorial filmography

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links