Stephen Fry

Stephen John Fry (born 24 August, 1957) is a well known British comedian, author, actor and director. Son of Alan and Marianne Fry.

He was educated at Stout's Hill, Uppingham and Queens' College, Cambridge, England. He lives in Norfolk, London, and New York City. He is an erstwhile collaborator of Hugh Laurie's.

Highlights of Fry's career include:

• While still at boarding school, Fry absconded with a stolen credit card and, when apprehended, spent three months in prison for fraud.
• He made an early television appearance on University Challenge while an undergraduate at Cambridge.
• In 1984, he rewrote the script of the stage musical, Me and My Girl, which subsequently became a huge West End hit.
• Due to make his debut on the West End stage in Simon Gray's play, Cell Mates, Fry suffered an attack of stage fright so serious that he ran away, leaving only an apology, and turning up some days later in Belgium.
• He famously declared that he practised a celibate lifestyle (which he has since abandoned for a life of lechery).
• He made his debut as a film director with Bright Young Things, an adaptation of the novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, in 2003.

Table of contents

1 List of Works 2 Performances 3 Trivia 4 Links

List of Works

• Films (As Director)
  • Bright Young Things (2003)

• Novels
  • The Liar (1992)
  • The Hippopotamus (1994)
  • Making History (an example of alternate history) (1997) Winner of the Sidewise Award for Alternate History
  • The Stars' Tennis Balls (Fry's take on The Count of Monte Cristo story (2000))

• Other books
  • Paperweight (collection of articles) (1992)
  • Moab is My Washpot: An Autobiography (1997)

• TV scripts
  • A Bit of Fry and Laurie (1990)
  • A Bit More Fry and Laurie
  • Fry & Laurie #3
  • Three Bits of Fry and Laurie
  • Fry & Laurie Bit No. 4

• Plays
  • Latin! (1979, included in Paperweight). Winner of the Fringe First at the 1980 Edinburgh Festival.

• Screenplays
  • Bright Young Things (2003)

• Musicals
  • Me and My Girl (adapted Lupino Lane's script) (1983)

Performances

• TV programmes
  • Blackadder (Mostly Blackadder II and Blackadder Goes Forth, with cameos in other series)
  • Whose Line Is It Anyway (the U.K. version)
  • A Bit of Fry and Laurie (1987 pilot, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1995)
  • Jeeves and Wooster (1990-93)
  • Common Pursuit (1992)
  • Gormenghast (2000)
  • QI (2003)

• Films
  • A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
  • Peter's Friends (1992)
  • I.Q (1994)
  • Wilde (1997)
  • Spice World (1997)
  • A Civil Action (1998)
  • Relative Values (2000), based on Noel Coward's play
  • Gosford Park (2001)
  • The Discovery of Heaven
  • Thunderpants (2002)

• Plays
  • The Common Pursuit (1988)
  • Cell Mates, by Simon Gray (1995)

• Radio shows
  • Saturday Night Fry (1988, BBC Radio Four, six episodes)
  • A Bit of Fry and Laurie (1994, BBC Radio Four, two half-hour programmes compiled from selected previously-seen sketches from the TV series)
  • Regular guest panelist on I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

Stephen Fry also narrates the audio versions of the Harry Potter books

Trivia

The Stars' Tennis Balls contains several major characters whose names are anagrams or other simple mutations of their counterparts in The Count of Monte Cristo. For example:

Mercedes	Portia	pun
de Villefort	Oliver Delft	anagram
the Abbe (Faria)	the Babe (Fraser)	anagram (partial)
Fernand Mondego	Gordon Fendeman	anagram
Noirtier	Blackrow	translated literally
Capt. Leclere	Paddy Leclare	homonym
Caderousse	Cade, Rufus	similar sound
Danglars	Garland	anagram (mostly)

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Links

• Official Stephen Fry Web site