STEPHEN FRY Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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STEPHEN FRY

Name: Stephen John Fry                                                                     
Born: 24 August 1957 London, England                                                       
                                                                                           
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English comedian, writer, actor,               
humourist, novelist, columnist, filmmaker, television personality and                       
technophile. As one half of the Fry and Laurie double act with his comedy                   
partner, Hugh Laurie, he has appeared in A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Jeeves and             
Wooster; famous also for his roles in Blackadder and Wilde, and as the host of             
QI. In addition to writing for stage, screen, television and radio he has                   
contributed columns and articles for numerous newspapers and magazines, also               
having written four successful novels and an autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot.             
                                                                                           
Fry was born in Hampstead, London, the son of Alan Fry, an English physicist,               
and Marianne Newman, who is of Austrian-Jewish parentage. His mother's aunt and             
cousins were killed in Auschwitz concentration camp. Fry grew up in the                     
village of Booton near Reepham, Norfolk, having moved from Chesham,                         
Buckinghamshire when very young.                                                           
                                                                                           
Fry briefly attended Cawston Primary School, Cawston, Norfolk, described later             
in his 1997 book Moab Is My Washpot before going on to Stouts Hill                         
Preparatory School, and then to Uppingham School, Rutland, where he joined                 
Fircroft house. He was expelled from Uppingham when he was fifteen, and                     
subsequently from the Paston School. At seventeen, following his failure at                 
Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen             
from a family friend, and as a result spent three months in Pucklechurch Prison             
for fraud. Following his release he resumed education at Norwich City College,             
promising administrators that he would study rigorously to sit the Cambridge               
entrance exams. He passed well enough to gain a scholarship to Queens' College,             
Cambridge. At Cambridge, Fry gained a degree in English literature, joined the             
Cambridge Footlights, and appeared on University Challenge. As a member of                 
the Footlights he also met his future comedy collaborator, Hugh Laurie.                     
                                                                                           
Fry struggled to keep his homosexuality secret during his teenage years at                 
public school, and was celibate for 16 years. When asked about when he knew he             
was homosexual he quotes an old friend and says, "I suppose 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 coming out of one of those'". Fry currently lives in London               
with his partner, Daniel Cohen, whom he met in 1995. He famously drives a former           
1988 London black cab. He also has a second home in West Bilney, near King's               
Lynn, Norfolk.                                                                             
                                                                                           
Fry has been diagnosed with cyclothymia. He suffered a nervous breakdown in                 
1995 while appearing in a West End play called Cell Mates and subsequently                 
walked out of the production, prompting its early closure and incurring the                 
displeasure of co-star Rik Mayall and playwright Simon Gray. Mayall's comedy               
partner Adrian Edmondson made light of the subject in his and Mayall's second               
Bottom live show. Fry went missing for several days while contemplating suicide.           
He abandoned the idea and left the United Kingdom by ferry, eventually                     
resurfacing in Belgium.                                                                     
                                                                                           
Fry has spoken publicly about his experience with bipolar disorder and has                 
presented his documentary about it, Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic-Depressive.   
In the programme he interviewed sufferers of the illness including celebrities             
Carrie Fisher, Richard Dreyfuss, and Tony Slattery. Also featured were chef Rick           
Stein, whose father committed suicide, Robbie Williams, who talks of his                   
experience with unipolar depression, and comedienne/former psychiatric nurse Jo             
Brand. The two-part series was broadcast on BBC Two in September 2006, repeated             
in March 2007 as part of the BBC's programming in aid of Comic Relief, and                 
repeated in August 2007 as a celebration of Fry's 50th birthday.                           
                                                                                           
Fry was an active supporter of the British Labour Party for many years, and                 
appeared in a party political broadcast on its behalf with Hugh Laurie and                 
Michelle Collins in November 1993. Despite this, he did not vote in the 2005               
General Election because of the stance of both the Labour and Conservative                 
parties with regard to the Iraq War. Despite his praising of the current                   
government for social reform, Fry has been critical of the Labour Party's "Third           
Way" concept. He is on cordial terms with Prince Charles (despite satirising him           
heavily as King Charles I in the comedy programme Blackadder: The Cavalier Years),         
through his work with the Prince's Trust. He attended the wedding of the Prince             
of Wales to Camilla Parker-Bowles in 2005.                                                 
                                                                                           
Fry is a friend of British comedian and actor Rowan Atkinson and was best man at           
Atkinson's wedding to Sunetra Sastry at the Russian Tea Room in New York City.             
He was also a friend of British actor John Mills. He was best man at the                   
wedding of Hugh Laurie and is godfather to all three of Laurie's children.                 
                                                                                           
A great fan of cricket (he is related to legendary England cricketer and                   
polymath C.B. Fry), he was recently interviewed for the Ashes Fever DVD,                   
reporting on England's victory against Australia in the 2005 Ashes series. In               
football he is a supporter of Norwich City (as mentioned in Ashes Fever).                   
                                                                                           
He has been described as "deeply dippy for all things digital", claims to have             
owned the second Macintosh sold in the UK and to have never encountered a                   
smartphone that he has not bought.