Graham Chapman

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Graham Chapman bigraphy, stories - British comedian

Graham Chapman : biography

df=y August 1 – 4 October 1989

Graham Arthur Chapman (8 January 1941 – 4 October 1989) was an English comedian, writer, actor, and one of the six members of the surreal comedy group Monty Python.

Career

Before Python

Chapman and John Cleese wrote professionally for the BBC during the 1960s, initially 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 programmes 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 later joined Feldman in the television comedy series At Last the 1948 Show. There, Chapman displayed a gift for deadpan comedy (such as in the sketch "The Minister Who Falls to Pieces") and for imitating various British dialects. Chapman and Cleese 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

In 1969, Chapman and Cleese joined the other Pythons including Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin for their sketch comedy show Flying Circus. Chapman most often played characters with personalities close to his own: outwardly calm and authoritative figures barely concealing a manic unpredictability. In David Morgan’s book Monty Python Speaks, Cleese asserted that Chapman, although officially his co-writer for many of their sketches, contributed comparatively little in the way of direct writing. Rather, the other Pythons have said that Chapman’s biggest contribution in the writing room was an intuition as to what was funny. Cleese said in an interview that one of Chapman’s great attributes was "his weird takes on things." In writing sessions Chapman "would lob in an idea or a line from out of left field into the engine room, but he could never be the engine", Cleese said. In the Dead Parrot sketch, written mostly by Cleese, the frustrated customer was initially trying to return a faulty toaster to a shop. Chapman asked "How can we make this madder?", and then came up with the idea that returning a dead Norwegian Blue parrot to a pet shop might make for a more interesting subject than returning a toaster. In Monty Python Live at Aspen, Cleese said that the original idea came from a man Palin bought a car from, who had endless excuses for everything that went wrong with it. Cleese said that he and Chapman believed that "there was something very funny there, if we could find the right context for it."

Chapman played the lead roles in the Pythons’ two narrative feature films Holy Grail and Life of Brian. Cleese complimented Chapman by saying that he was "very possibly the best actor of all of us". In the late 1970s, Chapman moved to Los Angeles, where he guest-starred on many television shows including Hollywood Squares, Still Crazy Like a Fox, and The Big Show. Upon his return to England, Chapman became involved with the Dangerous Sports Club (an extreme sports club which introduced bungee jumping to a wide audience). Chapman and Douglas Adams wrote a pilot for a TV series in 1975, Out of the Trees, but it never went beyond the initial episode. They also wrote an unmade show for Ringo Starr. Chapman mentored Adams, but they later had a falling out and did not speak for several years. In 1978, Chapman co-wrote (with Bernard McKenna) and starred in The Odd Job alongside David Jason who had previously appeared on Do Not Adjust Your Set with Idle, Jones, and Palin. The film was only moderately successful. Chapman’s memoir, A Liar’s Autobiography, was published in 1980 and, unusually for a work of this type, had five authors: Chapman, his partner David Sherlock, Alex Martin, David Yallop and Douglas Adams.

Although writing had begun in the late 1970s, Chapman was finally able to secure funding for his much cherished pirate project Yellowbeard in 1982. Once again, Chapman collaborated with writer Bernard McKenna and for the first time with Peter Cook. The film, which starred Chapman as the eponymous pirate, also featured appearances from Peter Cook, Marty Feldman, Cleese, Idle, Spike Milligan, and Cheech & Chong. It marks the last appearance of Feldman, who suffered a fatal heart attack during shooting. It was released in 1983 to mixed reviews. In a 2001 interview, Cleese described Yellowbeard as "one of the six worst films made in the history of the world."2001 interview included as an extra on the release of the John Cleese film Clockwise. Eric Idle also later dismissed the film although he remembered his participation fondly.