Graham Chapman

Graham Chapman (8 January 1941—4 October 1989) was a British comedian and writer. He was one of the six Monty Python members and lead actor in their two narrative films, playing King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Brian in Life of Brian.

Education and early performances

Chapman was educated at Melton Mowbray Grammar School and studied medicine at Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge, where he began writing comedy with fellow University student John Cleese. He qualified as a medical doctor at the Barts Hospital Medical College, but rarely practiced medicine.

While at Cambridge, Chapman joined Footlights. Fellow members were John Cleese, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, David Hatch, Jonathan Lynn, Humphrey Barclay, and Jo Kendall. Their revue A Clump of Plinths was so successful at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that they renamed it Cambridge Circus, and took the revue to the West End in London and later New Zealand and Broadway. The revue appeared in October 1964 on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Writing for the BBC

Chapman and Cleese wrote professionally for the BBC during the 1960s, primarily for David Frost, but also for Marty Feldman. Chapman also contributed sketches to the BBC radio series I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again and television programs such as The Illustrated Weekly Hudd (starring Roy Hudd), Cilla Black, This is Petula Clark, and This is Tom Jones. Chapman, Cleese, and Tim Brooke-Taylor then joined Feldman in the television comedy series At Last the 1948 Show. Chapman (and Cleese on occasion) also wrote for the long-running television comedy series Doctor in the House. Chapman also co-wrote several episodes with Bernard McKenna and David Sherlock.

Monty Python's Flying Circus is born

In 1969 Chapman and Cleese joined Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and American artist Terry Gilliam for Monty Python's Flying Circus. Cleese and Chapman's classic Python sketches include "The Ministry of Silly Walks" and "Dead Parrot". One of Chapman's most famous characters was "The Colonel", a stuffy army officer who occasionally appeared out of nowhere to order the end of a sketch for being too silly. After Cleese left the series in 1973, Chapman wrote alone, as well as a bit with Neil Innes and Douglas Adams for the final fourth series. He then developed a number of television and movie projects, most notably Out of the Trees, The Odd Job and Yellowbeard, in which he starred alongside Cleese, Peter Cook, Cheech and Chong and Feldman (who died during the final days of production.)

After Python

In the late 1970s, Chapman moved to Los Angeles, where he guest-starred on many US television shows, including The Hollywood Squares, Still Crazy Like a Fox, and the NBC sketch series The Big Show. Upon returning to England he became involved with the Dangerous Sports Club (an extreme sports club which introduced bungee jumping to a wide audience), and he began the first of a lengthy series of US college comedy lecture tours in the 1980s. His memoir, "A Liar's Autobiography", was published in 1980 and, unusually for an autobiography, had five authors: Chapman, his partner David Sherlock, Alex Martin, David Yallop and Douglas Adams, who in 1977 was virtually unknown as a recent graduate fresh from Cambridge. Together they wrote a pilot for a TV series called "Out of the trees", and Adams was mentored by Chapman, but they later had a falling out and did not speak for several years. His last project was to have been a TV series called "Jake's Journey"; a pilot was made but after initial problems to sell it, Graham's death also killed this project. To this day the pilot lies somewhere on a shelf. There is a self-appointed Graham Chapman archive, but in all the years since Graham's death, only a few things have actually been released. One such item is a play entitled 'O Happy Day', brought to life by Dad's Garage Theatre in Atlanta, GA, in 2000. Michael Palin and John Cleese assisted the theatre company in adapting the play.

Personal Life

Among Chapman's best friends were Keith Moon of The Who, singer Harry Nilsson, and Beatle Ringo Starr. Chapman was an alcoholic in the 1970s, and he also kept his homosexuality a secret until the middle of that decade (although his fellow Pythons were already aware of his sexual orientation) when he famously came out on a chat show hosted by British jazz musician George Melly, thus becoming one of the first celebrities to do so. Several days later, he came out to a group of friends at a party held at his home in Belsize Park where he officially introduced them to his partner, David Sherlock. Afterwards, he became a vocal spokesman on gay rights.

One of Michael Palin's favourite stories about Chapman involved Palin's trips to collect him every morning for Python-related business: he would call up to Chapman's window and be greeted by a collection of young men before Chapman eventually surfaced, pipe in mouth. (This was written into an actual Python sketch, part of the "Mr. Neutron" episode of the fourth series.)

After Chapman made his homosexuality public, a member of the public wrote to the Pythons to complain that she had heard a member of the team was a homosexual, continuing on to quote a Bible passage which said "he who lies with another man shall be taken out and stoned." Eric Idle sent a reply saying, "We've found out who he was and we've taken him out and stoned him." Not long after this, John Cleese left Flying Circus for personal reasons. The woman never replied.

Death

Chapman died at the age of 48 on 4 October 1989, of pneumonia brought about by throat cancer, which had spread to his spine. Those at his side at the time of his passing were John Cleese, Michael Palin, and Chapman's sister-in-law. It is noted that Chapman's older brother, Dr. John Chapman, walked in only seconds after Graham had died; Cleese, who had never before seen anyone die, had to be escorted into another room to cope with his grief. Terry Jones and Peter Cook had visited earlier in the day.

Chapman's death occurred one day before the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of Flying Circus — in Jones' words, "the worst case of party-pooping in all history." Cleese delivered a eulogy for Chapman, during which he deliberately used the word "fuck" as well as other expletives, and got away with it on the BBC without having the bad language censored. Cleese has said that Chapman would have liked that. After the eulogy Cleese joined Gilliam, Jones, and Palin along with some of Chapmans other friends as Idle led a rendition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the film Monty Python's Life of Brian. Idle made the last comment on the tribute by requesting that "he would be the last person to say 'fuck'", after Cleese had already noted that he was the first person to use the word "fuck" in a British televised eulogy.

Legacy

The remaining Python members have acknowledged that, while brilliant, Chapman was exasperating to work with, and difficult to know. After his death, speculation of a Python revival inevitably faded. As Idle said, "we would only do a reunion if Graham came back from the dead. So we're negotiating with his agent." (Subsequent gatherings of the Pythons have in fact included an urn, said to contain Chapman's ashes).

Chapman's ashes were scattered over the summit of Snowdon, North Wales by Sherlock on June 18 2005.

An asteroid, 9617 Grahamchapman, is named in his honour.

External links

Graham Chapman Archives - Graham Chapman archive
Graham Chapman - BBC Comedy Guide
Graham Chapman - Comedy Zone
Graham Chapman - at the Internet Broadway Database
Graham Chapman's eulogy, delivered by John Cleese: transcript, video clip

At Last the 1948 Show
Tim Brooke-Taylor — Graham Chapman — John Cleese — Marty Feldman — Aimi MacDonald

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