John Cleese

Born: 27th October 1939
Where: Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset

The legally-trained Monty Python star and amateur psychologist scored a critical and commercial hit with A Fish Called Wanda.

On the big screen he also replaced gadgets supremo Q in the Bond series and plays Nearly Headless Nick in the Harry Potter films.

However, it was the trilogy of Python films - Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian and Monty Python's Meaning of Life - where he made his big screen name.

As a youngster, he excelled at cricket (he was 6'4" by the time he was 13) and was made captain of his school team when he wasn't writing down and organising jokes.

After enrolling at Cambridge University to study law he approached the Cambridge Footlights Society (he was originally rejected because he couldn't sing or dance).

It was there that he met future Monty Python colleague and writing partner Graham Chapman.

Cleese entered professional comedy with a writing stint on David Frost's The Frost Report in 1966.

While working for the BBC show, he and Chapman (who was also writing for the show) met fellow Frost Report writers Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.

Continuing his writing collaboration with Chapman (with whom he wrote the 1969 Ringo Starr/Peter Sellers vehicle The Magic Christian), Cleese soon was working on what would become Monty Python's Flying Circus.

The show, which first aired in 1969, was an iconoclastic look at British society which saw Cleese playing a variety of roles for three series.

After leaving, he hooked up with his Python colleagues for three movies.

The first, 1974's Monty Python and the Holy Grail, was a parody of the Arthurian legend featuring Cleese as the Black Knight.

Life of Brian followed (1979) attacked the dogmatic excesses of organised religion and resulted in an outcry from right wing groups in Britain and the USA.

In 1983, Monty Python's the Meaning of Life, returned to the sketch-based style and featured an obese man (Mr Creosote) exploding in a restaurant.

In addition to his work with the Pythons, Cleese, along with first wife Connie Booth, created the popular television series Fawlty Towers in 1975.

On the big screen, he starred as Robin Hood in Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits and played Major Giles Flack in Privates on Parade.

In 1983, he starred alongside Peter Cook in the underrated Yellowbeard and switched styles to appear in Lawrence Kasdan's Western Silverado.

Clockwise saw him as a frustrated headmaster trying to get to a keynote speech but it was A Fish Called Wanda where he struck box office gold.

Cleese, who wrote and co-directed the broad farce, was nominated for an Oscar for best screenplay.

Actor Kevin Kline landed an Academy Award for his role as a psychopath in the movie which also starred Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Palin.

Subsequent appearances included Splittng Heirs with old comedy partner Eric Idle, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and The Wind in the Willows.

In 1997, after the A Fish Called Wanda sequel, Fierce Creatures, was critically panned he appeared occasionally in the likes of The Out-of-Towners.

Cleese made his debut as Q (replacing the late Desmond Llewellyn) in The World Is Not Enough.

He also has a recurring role in the Harry Potter franchise, as the comedy ghost Nearly Headless Nick.

The occasional appearance includes the Eddie Murphy vehicle Pluto Nash, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and the voice of the king in Shrek 2.

In 2005, he provided the voice of Mercury in the British animated cartoon Valiant.