Actors - Stephen Fry

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	Actors - Stephen Fry

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 his troubled teenage years 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 from a Jewish family. He was educated at Stout's Hill, Uppingham School, during which time Fry absconded with a stolen credit card and, when apprehended, spent three months in Pucklechurch Prison for fraud. He then returned to his education at NORCAT (Norfolk College of Arts and Technology) where he took his A-Levels, before going on to Queens' College, Cambridge, where he gained a 2:1 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:

In 1984, rewriting the script of the stage musical, Me and My Girl, which subsequently became a huge West End hit.
Making his debut as a film director with 2003's Bright Young Things, an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies.
Hosting the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs)

Fry has often expressed admiration for three other authors; Anthony Buckeridge, his friend Douglas Adams, and P.G. Wodehouse. Their influence is noticeable in his writing style and it therefore seems appropriate that he has appeared as Jeeves, alongside Hugh Laurie's Bertie Wooster, in the Granada television adaptations of Wodehouse's writings, as The Guide in the film adaptation of Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
, and has read Buckeridge's Jennings stories on BBC radio.

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 memorably said about his homosexuality "I guess 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.'" Though in his autobiography Moab is My Washpot he admits that he 'borrowed' the line from a friend at the University of Cambridge.

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.

List of works

Films
* Bright Young Things
(director, 2003)
* The Magic Flute (libretto, forthcoming )

Novels
* The Liar (1992) (in which Donald Trefusis is a character)
* The Hippopotamus (1994)
* Making History (an example of alternate history) (1997) Winner of the Sidewise Award for Alternate History
* The Stars' Tennis Balls (as Revenge: A Novel in the United States) (Fry's take on The Count of Monte Cristo story (2000))

Other books
* Paperweight (collection of articles) (1992), including, among others, some of the "wireless essays" supposedly by professor Donald Trefusis.
* Moab is My Washpot (autobiography) (1997)
* Rescuing the Spectacled Bear: A Peruvian Diary (2002)
* Stephen Fry's Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music (2004)
* The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking The Poet Within (2005)

TV scripts
* A Bit of Fry and Laurie (1989, 1990)
* A Bit More Fry and Laurie
* Fry & Laurie #3
* Three Bits of Fry and Laurie
* Fry & Laurie Bit No. 4
* Doctor Who - unnamed episode commissioned for 2006 series but now planned for 2007 series

Plays
* Latin! (or Tobacco and Boys.) (1979, included in Paperweight). Winner of the Fringe First at the 1980 Edinburgh Festival.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Stephen Fry ]

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