Who is eric idle

Showing all items. His characters on Monty Python were often mischievous, happy-go-lucky men. Frequently wore wigs on Monty Python's Flying Circus, more so than the other performers. Daughter Lily b. Son Carey b. Studied English at Cambridge University. While at university, he was a member of the prestigious Cambridge Footlights Club, and later, President of the Footlights Club.

In , as a collegiate, he was admitted into the Cambridge Footlights comedy club. He became president of the club the following year and one of his first acts was to open the membership up to include women. Proudly calls himself "the third tallest member of Monty Python.

Smith, pg. New York: Facts on File, ISBN Was once tasked by his fellow Pythons with composing a response to an angry piece of fan mail. Monty Python member Graham Chapman was openly gay, and a letter had been written citing Bible verses, stating that homosexuals should be stoned to death.

He jokingly replied that they had stoned Chapman to death. Describes himself as having "creative dyslexia", meaning he can look at any word and automatically see the anagrams that can be made from it.

One of the characters he played in "Monty Python's Flying Circus" was a man who speaks only in anagrams. Admired by the other Pythons for his circle of friends, it was he who procured part of the production money for Monty Python's Life of Brian from former Beatle George Harrison. Appears as the M. Steve Martin calls him his mentor. Was invited to the party Steve Martin was throwing that turned out to be his wedding. It will perform there for 10 years.

Knew Michael Palin and Terry Jones from university. Longtime friend of George Harrison. John Cleese once told me he'd do anything for money. So I offered him a pound to shut up, and he took it. If the studios paid the artists, how would they ever be able to afford the executives? There was a time when we were almost universally hated by large sections of society. Now that we are the cuddly old farts of comedy, I rather miss the hatred.

We couldn't get [ Monty Python's Life of Brian ] made then. We looked and looked for money and we couldn't find anyone to back it. Only George Harrison would back it - and that's because he mortgaged his house.

Americans like to think Python is how English people really are. There is an element of truth to that. The odd thing is I knew that if [Spamalot] was going to be successful it would have to appeal to people who weren't just Python fans. What happened was that Middle America discovered Python through Spamalot. I'd do new gags each night. I thought, "I like this - we should find a subject".

It took me about 20 years to find a subject. When we got to North America it was extraordinary to find that everybody assumed that we were totally stoned all the time while making it up. You had to point out to people that actually you can't write comedy when you're stoned, you can't find the typewriter, but a lot of people still say to this day, 'Oh when I was a college kid, man, we'd just get a joint and watch Python and we'd laugh and laugh.

I was a war baby. My earliest memories are of a Wellington bomber crashing in flames into the field beside my nursery school. I remember being forced into a Mickey Mouse gas mask, instilling a lifelong fear of rubber masks and the eponymous rodent. I think there's something very seductive about the glamour of dressing up and playing somebody else, and that comes from a sadness. I think I only became any good eventually through Python by being disguised and by being other people and it was only latterly in my life that I have been able to be funny as myself or be confident.

I don't have to put on a disguise or wear a wig now but that's what I used to do. It was a physically abusive, bullying, harsh environment for a kid to grow up in, a boarding school where nobody had any fathers. The terms were interminable, fourteen weeks with no emotional support. I used to bridle when people used to describe us all as 'public school' - it's not true.

Graham was Leicester Grammar, Terry was grammar, I was this nightmare school and Michael was Shrewsbury, which is a public school, and John was at Clifton, also a public school. That's two out of six. The great comedians are always apparently invulnerable on stage although off stage they were not such supermen. I'm just trying to earn enough to get my daughter through college and my wife through collagen. Comedians are not normal people.

It is not a normal thing to do. You don't become a comedian without some early traumatizing experience, so comedy is also a coping mechanism. No gentleman talks to anyone before noon. One of the reasons I write alone is that I can't bear speaking to anyone first thing in the morning. Yes of course everyone was sad and in tears, but we were laughing. Nobody's ever done S Level, because it's above A Level and I once found somebody else who'd done it and we reckoned we were the only two people in England who ever did S Level!

Being an ex-Python is weird. I suppose we are all mistaken for the people we once were, that's what the fossilization of fame is all about, but we're not really them, are we? Those young men are long since gone. We have to talk about them as though we still are them, but we're not, you know.

They were smart, young, and terribly clever. We older, wider, and grayer men are their descendants. I used to be Eric Idle in Monty Python. But now I'm not. I'm not even like him. He drank and smoked and ate meat. He was married to a blond Australian. I'm none of the above. Of course I'm not ashamed to lose it in public anymore, but a blubbing comic just ain't entertaining. We [Brits] like to call it [soccer] "football" because, unlike American football, it is played with the feet.

Thank God. Secondary music is really bad for you. It's worse than smoking. At least smoking doesn't stop your thinking, but Muzak makes me resentful and gloomy. He [ Bill Murray ] has such a lived-in face, and how rare it is to see a decent wrinkle on the screen. Hollywood is into facial prejudice in a big way. Age denial is the national sport. There's a legendary story of one of the Monty Python boys being interviewed on a tape recorder by a pretty Canadian journalist while actually in flagrante, but wild horses would not drag the name of the recipient of this in-depth interview from my lips.

To talk seriously on the radio about comedy while porking the questioner is still something of a high spot in the history of irony. It was the golden age of executives, there weren't any.

Then he said he could come, but he didn't want to be onstage. I said, 'I totally get that. Through my friend Bobcat Goldthwait we were in touch, and in the end he said, 'I can't come, I'm sorry, but I love you very much. The secret of a good marriage is separate rooms. I've been with my current wife for 33 years and I can tell you that it works.

I don't mean not having sex - you can shag anywhere. The dreadful thing about getting older is you cry at the drop of a hat. I used to make fun of Richard Attenborough for crying. Now I'm turning into him. I can't remember anybody's names, so I call everybody "darling" and I cry all the time.

I can be very angry and acerbic. Therapy is really useful. It gives me a triangulation on myself: "I was this asshole the other day; why did I do that? I like being a foreigner. For me to live in California is very pleasant - I'm more comfortable not feeling a part of everything, not feeling responsible for the government or the roads or the health system.

At school we had a very soggy, muddy playing field and I wasn't very good at football, so on a Thursday afternoon, instead of changing for compulsory games, I'd put on my school cap, march out the front door, go down town to Wolverhampton and watch a movie.

I did this regularly every Thursday afternoon, for ages and ages, marching boldly past the headmaster's study and nobody ever caught me, because if you've got your cap on and you're walking through the front door, you're clearly doing some school business, right? So, I learnt very early on that if you're brazen, nobody questions you.

If I'd been sneaking out I would probably have been caught. Well I finally was caught in my penultimate year. The headmaster sent for me and he said, 'Did you enjoy the movie this afternoon? But when you're stupid, there's nothing that can be done. Well, this is exactly the sort of people we wish to upset. Thank you. Well done, job well done! I remember the stripper in Bradford [who ended up being given a non-speaking part as a topless newsagent in the Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch "The Dull Life of a City Stockbroker"]!

Oh God, that was wild. I remember it very, very well. Ian MacNaughton insisted on filming this stripper in Bradford, and we said, 'But Ian we haven't written a stripper sketch. They're aggressive and women who do it are very aggressive, it's not at all sexy or erotic. She was a bit of a scrubber and she did this thing and I remember going, 'Oh, fucking hell. I've lost friends because I was just being ironic. I'm trying to eschew irony, but it's very hard.

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