Cleese costarred with Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda (1988) and Fierce Creatures (1997), both of which he also wrote.

[3] He cofounded Video Arts, a production company making entertaining training films as well as The Secret Policeman's Ball benefit shows to raise funds for the human rights organisation Amnesty International.

[4] His family's surname was originally Cheese, but his father had thought it was embarrassing and used the name Cleese when he enlisted in the Army during the First World War; he changed it officially by deed poll in 1923.

[7][8] Cleese was educated at St Peter's Preparatory School,[9] paid for by money his mother had inherited,[10] where he received a prize for English and did well at cricket and boxing.

Cleese allegedly defaced the school grounds, as a prank, by painting footprints to suggest that the statue of Field Marshal Earl Haig had left its plinth and gone to the toilet.

"[17] At the Footlights theatrical club, Cleese spent a lot of time with Tim Brooke-Taylor and Bill Oddie and met his future writing partner Graham Chapman.

While performing in the musical Half a Sixpence,[17] Cleese met future Python Terry Gilliam as well as American actress Connie Booth, whom he married on 20 February 1968.

The British Film Institute commented, "Its twinning of height and social position, combined with a minimal script, created a classic TV moment.

The latter is perhaps best represented in the "Cheese Shop" and by Cleese's Mr Praline character, the man with a dead Norwegian Blue parrot and a menagerie of other animals all named "Eric".

Cleese also appeared during some abrupt scene changes as a radio commentator (usually outfitted in a dinner suit) where, in a rather pompous manner, he would make the formal and determined announcement "And now for something completely different", which later became the title of the first Monty Python film.

Along with Gilliam's animations, Cleese's work with Graham Chapman provided Python with its darkest and angriest moments, and many of his characters display the seething suppressed rage that later characterised his portrayal of Basil Fawlty.

Like Chapman, Cleese's poker face, clipped middle class accent, and intimidating height allowed him to appear convincingly as a variety of authority figures, such as policemen, detectives, Nazi officers or government officials, which he then proceeded to undermine.

On the Silly Walks sketch, Ben Beaumont-Thomas in The Guardian writes, "Cleese is utterly deadpan as he takes the stereotypical bowler-hatted political drone and ruthlessly skewers him.

Cleese based Basil Fawlty on a real person, Donald Sinclair, whom he had encountered in 1970 while the Monty Python team were staying at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay while filming inserts for their television series.

In 1985, Cleese had a small dramatic role as a sheriff in the American Western Silverado, which had an all-star cast that included Kevin Kline, with whom he starred in A Fish Called Wanda three years later.

[55] In 1988, Cleese wrote and starred in A Fish Called Wanda as the lead, Archie Leach, along with Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin.

Wanda was a commercial and critical success, becoming one of the top ten films of the year at the US box office, and Cleese was nominated for an Academy Award for his script.

Chapman's death occurred a day before the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of Flying Circus, with Jones commenting that it was "the worst case of party-pooping in all history."

The follow-up to A Fish Called Wanda, Fierce Creatures—which again starred Cleese alongside Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Michael Palin—was released in 1997, but was greeted with mixed reception by critics and audiences.

[62] Part of DC's "Elseworlds" line of imaginary stories, True Brit, mostly written by Kim Howard Johnson, suggests what might have happened had Superman's rocket ship landed on a farm in Britain, not America.

His role was that of an "outlander" named Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard, stranded in the Imperial City of the Jade Empire.

Cleese collaborated with Los Angeles Guitar Quartet member William Kanengiser in 2008 on the text to the performance piece "The Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha".

Entitled "John Cleese: Last Time to See Me Before I Die tour", he visited Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Victoria and finished in Vancouver, performing to mostly sold-out venues.

[81] At a comic press conference in November 2013, Cleese and other surviving members of the Monty Python comedy group announced a reuniting performance to be held in July 2014.

Outgoing leader of the Liberal Democrats Paddy Ashdown had put forward the suggestion shortly before stepping down, with the idea that Cleese would take the party whip and sit as a working peer, but the actor quipped that he "realised this involved being in England in the winter and I thought that was too much of a price to pay."

[102] Talking to Der Spiegel in 2015, Cleese expressed a critical view on what he saw as a plutocracy that was unhealthily developing control of the governance of the First World's societies, stating that he had reached a point when he "saw that our existence here is absolutely hopeless.

"[107] In July 2018, Cleese said that he was leaving the UK to relocate to the Caribbean island of Nevis, partly over frustration around the standard of the Brexit debate, including "dreadful lies" by "the right" and a lack of reform regarding the press and the voting system.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan responded, "These comments make John Cleese sound like he's in character as Basil Fawlty.

Cleese added, "I suspect I should apologise for my affection for the Englishness of my upbringing, but in some ways I found it calmer, more polite, more humorous, less tabloid, and less money-oriented than the one that is replacing it.

"[110] In 2020, Cleese opposed the BBC's removal of the Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans" from the UKTV streaming service after protests following the murder of George Floyd, stating that the program was mocking prejudice with its use of a character who uttered racial slurs.