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Stephen John Fry (born 24 August, 1957) is an English comedian, author, actor and filmmaker. 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.

In recent years, Fry has more or less assumed the role of a national treasure in the UK. He is sometimes perceived as a tweedy, old-fashioned figure despite being what could be considered an unorthodox individual: a homosexual of Jewish descent with a troubled youth and frequently unconventional views.

Childhood and education

Fry was born in Hampstead, London, the son of Alan Fry, an English scientist, and Marianne Neumann, an Austrian of Jewish descent. When he was young the family moved to the country and he grew up in Norfolk, briefly attending Gresham's School, Holt, before going on to Stout's Hill Preparatory School, Uppingham School, Rutland, during which time Fry absconded with a stolen credit card and subsequently spent three months in Pucklechurch Prison for fraud. He then returned to his education at Norwich City College — persuading the college authorities, by sheer force of will, to take him on in order to study for the Cambridge Entrance Exams, and passed well enough to gain a scholarship before going on to Queens' College, Cambridge, where he gained a 1#Second Class Honours in English. During his time at Cambridge he met his longstanding friend and collaborator, Hugh Laurie, joined the Cambridge Footlights, and appeared on University Challenge.

Career highlights

Highlights of Fry's career include:

Fry has often expressed great admiration for three authors in particular: Anthony Buckeridge, his friend Douglas Adams, and P.G. Wodehouse, all of whom have strongly influenced his own writing. He has also appropriately appeared in dramatic adaptations of all three men's works: as Jeeves (alongside Hugh Laurie's Bertie Wooster) in the Granada television adaptations of Wodehouse's short stories, as the voice of The Guide in the film adaptation of Adams' novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and narrating a BBC radio reading of Buckeridge's Jennings stories.

Fry is also currently hosting the hit question and answer programme QI with contestants such as Alan Davies, Bill Bailey, Phill Jupitus and Jo Brand. He won the 2006 Rose d'Or award for Best Game Show Host for his work on the series.

Fry also voices or appears in many television advertisements in the UK. He is currently the spokesman for Twinings tea.

Personal life

Fry has spoken about his struggle to keep his homosexuality secret during his teenage years at public school, and famously practised a celibate lifestyle for 16 years. He once famously commented, "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.'" (Fry admits in his autobiography, Moab is My Washpot, that he "borrowed" the line from a friend at university.) Fry currently lives in London with his long-time partner, Daniel Cohen. Fry met Cohen after piecing his life together following a breakdown in 1995 due to bad reviews for his performance in the play Cell Mates. He walked out of the production, provoking its early closure, and incurring the disgust of his fellow actor, Rik Mayall. He also has a second home in West Bilney near King's Lynn, Norfolk.

Fry has since spoken publicly about his experience of bipolar disorder, and has made a documentary about other people's experiences of the condition. *,*

Fry was an active supporter of the British Labour Party for many years. However he admitted to not voting in the 2005 General Election, since both the Labour and Conservative parties supported the Iraq War. He has since been increasingly critical of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Third Way.

Quotations

  • May 2006, essay for the BBC programme This Week:
"As someone who worked hard for a Labour victory in the 90s, do I regret it? Not really. It was bound to happen. And it'll happen with the next government, and the one after it. Because all governments serve us. They serve the filth." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/4996976.stm

  • From an interview in OutUK: "What you do with your penis or your bottom or anything else is so supremely irrelevant in a moral sense. It's what we do with our personalities and other people that matters." http://www.outuk.com/index.php?http://www.outuk.com/content/features/humour/

  • From his autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot:

"There are plenty of other things to be got up to in the homosexual world outside the orbit of the anal ring, but the concept that really gets the goat of the gay-hater, the idea that really spins their melon and sickens their stomach is that most terrible and terrifying of all human notions, love. That one can love another of the same gender, that is what the homophobe really cannot stand. Love in all eight tones and all five semitones of the word's full octave. Love as agape, Eros and philos; love as romance, friendship and adoration; love as infatuation, obsession and lust; love as torture, euphoria, ecstacy and oblivion (this is beginning to read like a Calvin Klein perfume catalogue); love as need, passion and desire."

  • "My vocals cords are made of tweed. I give off an air of Oxford donnishness and old BBC wirelesses."

  • From his radio broadcast, "Trefusis Blasphemes": "I am a lover of truth, a worshipper or freedom, a celebrant at the alter of language and purity and tolerance. That is my religion, and every day I am sorely, grossly, heinously and deeply offended, wounded, mortified and injured by a thousand different blasphemies against it. When the fundamental conons of truth, honesty, compassion and decency are hourly assaulted by fatuous bishops, pompous, illiberal and ignorant priests, politicians and prelates, sanctimonious censors, self-appointed moralists and busy-bodies, what recourse of ancient laws have I? None whatever. Nor would I ask for any. For unlike these blistering imbeciles my belief in my religion is strong and I know that lies will always fail and indecency and intolerance will always perish."

  • "You should try the fruit of every tree of every garden in the world. But 'try' is the word. Some fruits will be rotten, some will be poisonous, and some will be so seductive you eat nothing else and become malnu-treated, if there is such a word."

  • From his article "Television Review" for Arena magazine: "A short word about Noel Edmonds: No."

  • "How can one not be fond of something that the Daily Mail despises?"

List of works

Written works

Performances

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Stephen Fry".

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