As well as his work in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and an autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot. He also appears frequently on BBC Radio 4, starring in the comedy series Absolute Power, being a frequent guest on panel games such as Just a Minute, and acting as chairman for I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, where he succeeded the late Humphrey Lyttelton.
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, Martin and Rosa Neumann[2] were Jewish immigrants from Šurany, Slovakia,[2][3] and his mother's aunt and cousins were killed in Auschwitz.[2] Fry grew up in the village of Booton near Reepham, Norfolk, having moved from Chesham, Buckinghamshire when very young. Fry would have been brought up in the United States had his father not turned down a job at Princeton University.[4]
Fry briefly attended Cawston Primary School, Cawston, Norfolk, described later in his 1997 book Moab Is My Washpot,[5] 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 Paston School.
At seventeen, after leaving Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen from a family friend, was arrested in Swindon, and as a result spent three months in Pucklechurch Prison for fraud.[6]
Following his release he resumed education at City College Norwich, 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.[7] It was at the Footlights that Fry met his future comedy collaborator Hugh Laurie.
Career
[edit] Television
Stephen Fry at a book signing in February 2009
Fry's career in television began with the 1982 broadcasting of The Cellar Tapes, the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue which was 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. In 1986 and 1987 Fry and Laurie also performed sketches on the LWT/Channel 4 show Saturday Live.
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, made a guest appearance in Blackadder the Third as the Duke of Wellington, then returned to a starring role 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 2000, Fry played the role of Professor Bellgrove in the BBC serial Gormenghast which was an adaptation of the first two novels of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series.
QI
In 2003, he began hosting QI, an intellectual panel game that has become one of the most-watched entertainment programmes on British television.[8] In 2006, he won the Rose d'Or award for "Best Game Show Host" for his work on the series.[9]
Other series
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. His six-part travel series Stephen Fry in America began on BBC One on 12 October 2008 and featured a short interview with Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia.[10] 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 original programmes because of time constraints.[11]
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.[12]
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,[13] which he later recorded for a podcast.[14]
Fry also narrates the English language version of the Spanish children's animated series Pocoyo.[15]
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 the same year he also appeared in the Dutch film The Discovery of Heaven, directed by Jeroen Krabbé and based on the novel by Harry Mulisch.
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.[16] Later that same year, he wrote the English libretto and dialogue for Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of The Magic Flute.
Fry in "Happy Birthday to GNU (2008)"
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 in V for Vendetta.[17] 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.[18]
In 2008, he participated in a film celebrating the 25th anniversary of GNU, Happy Birthday to GNU. Fry was offered a role in Valkyrie but was unable to participate.[19] Fry will be starring in the upcoming Tim Burton animated tale, Alice in Wonderland, as The Cheshire Cat, alongside Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway.[citation needed]
Radio
Fry became famous to radio listeners with the 1986 creation of his supposed alter-ego, Donald Trefusis, whose "wireless essays" were broadcast on the Radio 4 programme Loose Ends. In the 1980s he starred in four series of the BBC Radio 4 show Delve Special, written by Tony Sarchet, which became six part Channel 4 series This is David Lander in 1988.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 2002, Fry voiced Winnie-the-Pooh and one of the narrators in Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, both written by A.A Milne.
In 2007, he hosted Current Puns, an exploration of 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.[20]
In February 2008, Fry began presenting podcasts entitled Stephen Fry's Podgrams, in which he recounts his life and recent experiences.[14] 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.[21]
In August 2008 he hosted Fry's English Delight, a three part series on BBC Radio 4 about metaphor, quotation and cliché.[22]
In the summer 2009 series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Fry is one of a trio of hosts to replace Humphrey Lyttelton (the others being Jack Dee and Rob Brydon).[23]
He also lends his voice to the introduction and stings for Phill Jupitus' fortnightly podcast, The Perfect Ten.
Theatre
Fry wrote a play entitled Latin! (or Tobacco and Boys) for the 1980 Edinburgh Festival, where it won the "Fringe First" prize.[24] It is undergoing a 2009 revival with performances opening on June 23 at London's Cock Tavern Theatre, directed by Adam Spreadbury-Maher.[25] The Cellar Tapes, the Footlights Revue of 1981, 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.[26] Fry is a long-time fan of the 1960s anarchic British musical comedy group, the Bonzo Dog Band and, particularly, of its eccentric front man, the late Vivian Stanshall. Fry helped to fund an ill-fated 1988 London re-staging of the Stanshall's acclaimed Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera, written by Vivian and Ki Longfellow-Stanshall for the Bristol-based Old Profanity Showboat. Fry performed several of Stanshall's numbers as part of the Bonzo's 26 January 2006 reunion concert at the London Astoria. He also appears as a shiny New Millennium Bonzo on their post-reunion album, Pour l'Amour des Chiens, including his reciting of a recipe for "Salmon Proust", playing a butler in "Hawkeye the Gnu", and voicing ads for the fictitious "Fiasco" stores.
Video games
Fry's voice has been featured in a number of video games, including an appearance as Reaver, a main character in the Xbox 360 game Fable II, and as the narrator in LittleBigPlanet on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable.[27] He also served as narrator on the first two Harry Potter games (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets).[citation needed]
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.[citation needed] Making History is partly set in an alternative universe where Hitler's father is made infertile and his replacement proves a rather more effective Führer. The book won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. The Hippopotamus centres around Edward (Ted/Tedward) Wallace and his stay at his old friend Lord Logan's country manor in Norfolk. The Stars' Tennis Balls is a modern retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo.
Fry's 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.[28] 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.[10]
On 26 May 2009, Fry unveiled The Dongle of Donald Trefusis, an audiobook series following the character Donald Trefusis (a character from Fry's novel The Liar and from the Radio 4 series Loose Ends), set over 12 episodes[29]. After its release, it reached No. 1 on the UK Album Chart album chart list.
Acclaim
This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (October 2008)
* In 1995, Stephen Fry was presented with an honorary doctorate from the University of Dundee, which named their main Students' Association bar after one of his novels (The Liar Bar). Fry is patron of its Lip Theatre Company.[30] He served two consecutive terms (1992–1995 and 1995–1998) as the student-elected Rector of the University (only the second rector of the university to be elected twice, the first being Clement Freud); coincidentally, this post is currently held by his secondary school classmate, controversial former diplomat Craig Murray.
* Fry was also awarded an honorary degree from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge in 2005.[31][32]
* In 2005, Fry was made honorary president of the Cambridge University Quiz Society and honorary fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge.
* In a 2005 poll to find The Comedians' Comedian Fry was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and business insiders, and, in September 2006, number 9 in a poll of TV's Greatest Stars as voted for by the general public.
* In December 2006 he was ranked 6th for the BBC's Top Living Icon Award,[33] was featured on The Culture Show, and was voted most intelligent man on television by readers of Radio Times.
* The Independent on Sunday Pink List named Fry the second most influential gay person in Britain in May 2007. He had taken the twenty-third position on the list the previous year.[34]
* Later the same month he was announced as the 2007 BT Mind Champion of the Year[35] in recognition of the awareness raised by his documentary on bipolar disorder, and was also nominated for Best Entertainment Performance (QI) and Best Factual Series (Secret Life of the Manic Depressive) at the 2007 British Academy Television Awards.
* BBC Four dedicated two nights of programming to Fry on 17–18 August 2007, in celebration of his 50th birthday. The first night, comprising programmes featuring Fry, began with a 60-minute documentary entitled Stephen Fry: 50 Not Out. The second night was composed of programmes selected by Fry, as well as a 60-minute interview with Mark Lawson and half-hour special, Stephen Fry: Guilty Pleasures. Stephen Fry Weekend proved such a ratings hit for BBC Four that it was repeated on BBC Two on 16–17 September.
* He claims to hold the UK record for saying "fuck" the most times on a live television broadcast.[36]
* Fry was the last person to be named Pipe Smoker of the Year before the award was discontinued for legal reasons.
* He is a Patron of the Norwich Playhouse theatre and a Vice President of The Noël Coward Society.[37]
* He was granted a lifetime achievement award at the British Comedy Awards on 5 December 2007.[38]
* Fry is mentioned in the Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip song Thou Shalt Always Kill, in the line "thou shalt not question Stephen Fry"
* In 2007 Broadcast magazine listed Fry at #4 in its "Hot 100" list of influential on-screen performers, describing him as a polymath and a "national treasure".[39]
[edit] Personal life
Fry struggled to keep his homosexuality secret during his teenage years at public school, and has claimed not to have engaged in sexual activity for sixteen years from 1979 until 1995.[40][41] When asked when he first acknowledged his sexuality, Fry quipped: "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 going up one of those.'"[42] Fry currently lives in London with his partner, Daniel Cohen, whom he met in 1995.[43] He famously drives a black TX4 London cab. He also has a second home near King's Lynn, Norfolk.
Fry was an active supporter of the 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.[44] He was best man at the wedding of Hugh Laurie (whom he considers to be his best friend[45]) and is godfather to all three of Laurie's children.
A fan of cricket, Fry is related to former England cricketer C.B. Fry,[46] and was recently interviewed for the Ashes Fever DVD, reporting on England's victory over 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 jokes that he has never encountered a smartphone that he has not bought.[47] 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 Wikipedia brings us all."[48]
Fry has a long interest in internet production, including his own website since 1997. His current site, The New 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[49] 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.[50] In October 2008, he began posting to his Twitter stream,[51] which he regularly updates.[52] In February 2009, he became the second-most-followed person on Twitter after Barack Obama.[53] On May 16, 2009, he celebrated the 500,000-follower mark: "Bless my soul 500k followers. And I love you all. Well, all except that silly one. And that's not you."[54]
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.[55]
A year later, The Guardian published a letter from Fry addressing his younger self, explaining how his future is soon to unfold, reflecting on the positive progression towards gay acceptance and openness around him, and yet not everywhere, while warning on how "the cruel, hypocritical and loveless hand of religion and absolutism has fallen on the world once more".[56]
Health
Fry has been diagnosed with cyclothymia, a mild form of bipolar disorder.[57] 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.[58] 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.[59] 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 has a deviated nasal septum due to falling and breaking his nose when he was six. In January 2008, he broke his arm while filming in Brazil.[12] He later explained in a podcast how the accident happened: while climbing aboard a boat, he slipped between it and the dock, and, while stopping himself from falling into the water, his body weight caused his right humerus to snap. The damage was more severe than first thought: the resulting vulnerability to his radial nerve — he was at risk of losing the use of his arm — was not diagnosed until he saw a consultant in the UK.[60]
Talking on QI, Fry has revealed that he is allergic to both champagne[61] and bumble bee stings.[62]
