name	Douglas Adams
birth date	March 11, 1952
birth place	Cambridge, England, United Kingdom
height	6 ft 5''
death date	May 11, 2001
death place	Santa Barbara, California, United States
resting place	Highgate Cemetery, London, England
alma mater	St John's College, Cambridge
religion	None (Atheist)
occupation	Writer
genre	Science fiction, comedy, satire
influences	Monty Python, Robert Sheckley, Kurt Vonnegut, P. G. Wodehouse, Richard Dawkins
influenced	Richard Dawkins, Eoin Colfer, Neil Gaiman
website	http://douglasadams.com/
religion	None (Atheist) }}

Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television series, several stage plays, comics, a computer game, and in 2005 a feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.

Adams also wrote ''Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'' (1987) and ''The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'' (1988), and co-wrote ''The Meaning of Liff'' (1983), ''Last Chance to See'' (1990), and three stories for the television series ''Doctor Who''. A posthumous collection of his work, including an unfinished novel, was published as ''The Salmon of Doubt'' in 2002.

Adams became known as an advocate for environmental and conservation causes, and also as a lover of fast cars, cameras, and the Apple Macintosh. He was a staunch atheist, famously imagining a sentient puddle who wakes up one morning and thinks, "This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" Biologist Richard Dawkins dedicated his book, ''The God Delusion'' (2006), to Adams, writing on his death that, "Science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender."

Early life[link]

Adams was born on 11 March 1952 to Janet (née Donovan) and Christopher Douglas Adams in Cambridge, England. The following year Watson and Crick famously first modelled DNA in the city, leading Adams to later quip he was DNA in Cambridge months earlier. The family moved to East London a few months after his birth where his sister, Susan, was born three years later. His parents divorced in 1957; Douglas, Susan, and their mother moved to an RSPCA animal shelter in Brentwood, Essex, run by his maternal grandparents.

Adams's father married Mary Judith Stewart (born Judith Robertson) in July 1960, a marriage that produced a half-sister, Heather; his mother's 1964 remarriage to veterinarian Ron Thrift provided two more half-siblings, Jane and James Thrift.

Education[link]

Adams attended Primrose Hill Primary School in Brentwood. At nine, he passed the entrance exam for Brentwood School, an independent school whose alumni include Robin Day, Jack Straw, Noel Edmonds, and David Irving. Griff Rhys Jones was a year below him, and he was in the same class as Stuckist artist Charles Thomson. He attended the prep school from 1959 to 1964, then the main school until December 1970. His form master, Frank Halford, said of him: "Hundreds of boys have passed through the school but Douglas Adams really stood out from the crowd—literally. He was unnecessarily tall and in his short trousers he looked a trifle self-conscious. "The form-master wouldn't say 'Meet under the clock tower,' or 'Meet under the war memorial'," he joked, "but 'Meet under Adams'." Yet it was his ability to write first-class stories that really made him shine." Adams was six feet tall (1.83 m) by age 12 and finally stopped growing at 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m): He became the only student ever to be awarded a ten out of ten by Halford for creative writing, something he remembered for the rest of his life, particularly when facing writer's block.

Some of his earliest writing was published at the school, such as a report on its photography club in ''The Brentwoodian'' in 1962, or spoof reviews in the school magazine ''Broadsheet'', edited by Paul Neil Milne Johnstone, who later became a character in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide''. He also designed the cover of one issue of the ''Broadsheet'', and had a letter and short story published nationally in ''The Eagle'', the boys' comic, in 1965. On the strength of a bravura essay on religious poetry that discussed The Beatles and William Blake, he was awarded a place at St John's College, Cambridge to read English, going up in 1971, though in fact the reason he applied to Cambridge was to join the Footlights, an invitation-only student comedy club that has acted as a hothouse for some of the most notable comic talent in England. He was not elected immediately as he had hoped, and started to write and perform in revues with Will Adams (no relation) and Martin Smith, forming a group called "Adams-Smith-Adams," but through sheer doggedness managed to become a member of the Footlights by 1973. Despite doing very little work—he recalled having completed three essays in three years—he graduated in 1974 with a B.A. in English literature.

Career[link]

Writing[link]

After leaving university Adams moved back to London, determined to break into TV and radio as a writer. An edited version of the ''Footlights Revue'' appeared on BBC2 television in 1974. A version of the Revue performed live in London's West End led to Adams being discovered by Monty Python's Graham Chapman. The two formed a brief writing partnership, earning Adams a writing credit in episode 45 of ''Monty Python'' for a sketch called "Patient Abuse". He is one of only two people outside the original Python members to get a writing credit (the other being Neil Innes). The sketch plays on the idea of mind-boggling paper work in an emergency, a joke later incorporated into the Vogons' obsession with paperwork. Adams also contributed to a sketch on the album for ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail''.

Adams had two brief appearances in the fourth series of ''Monty Python's Flying Circus''. At the beginning of episode 42, "The Light Entertainment War", Adams is in a surgeon's mask (as Dr. Emile Koning, according to on-screen captions), pulling on gloves, while Michael Palin narrates a sketch that introduces one person after another but never actually gets started. At the beginning of episode 44, "Mr. Neutron", Adams is dressed in a "pepperpot" outfit and loads a missile on to a cart driven by Terry Jones, who is calling for scrap metal ("Any old iron..."). The two episodes were broadcast in November 1974. Adams and Chapman also attempted non-Python projects, including ''Out of the Trees''.

At this point Adams's career stalled; his writing style was unsuited to the current style of radio and TV comedy. To make ends meet he took a series of odd jobs, including as a hospital porter, barn builder, and chicken shed cleaner. He was employed as a bodyguard by a Qatari family, who had made their fortune in oil. Anecdotes about the job included that the family had once ordered one of everything from a hotel's menu, tried all the dishes, and sent out for hamburgers. Another story had to do with a prostitute sent to the floor Adams was guarding one evening. They acknowledged each other as she entered, and an hour later, when she left, she is said to have remarked, "At least you can read while you're on the job."

During this time Adams continued to write and submit sketches, though few were accepted. In 1976 his career had a brief improvement when he wrote and performed, to good review, ''Unpleasantness at Brodie's Close'' at the Edinburgh Fringe festival. But by Christmas work had dried up again, and a depressed Adams moved to live with his mother. The lack of writing work hit him hard and a low confidence would become a feature of Adams's life; "I have terrible periods of lack of confidence [..] I briefly did therapy, but after a while I realised it was like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can't fix the weather – you just have to get on with it".

Some of Adams's early radio work included sketches for ''The Burkiss Way'' in 1977 and ''The News Huddlines''. He also wrote, again with Graham Chapman, the 20 February 1977 episode of ''Doctor on the Go'', a sequel to the ''Doctor in the House'' television comedy series. After the first radio series of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' became successful, Adams was made a BBC radio producer, working on ''Week Ending'' and a pantomime called ''Black Cinderella Two Goes East''. He left the position after six months to become the script editor for ''Doctor Who''.

In 1979 Adams and John Lloyd wrote scripts for two half-hour episodes of ''Doctor Snuggles'': "The Remarkable Fidgety River" and "The Great Disappearing Mystery" (episodes seven and twelve). John Lloyd was also co-author of two episodes from the original ''Hitchhiker'' radio series ("Fit the Fifth" and "Fit the Sixth", also known as "Episode Five" and "Episode Six"), as well as ''The Meaning of Liff'' and ''The Deeper Meaning of Liff''. Lloyd and Adams also collaborated on an SF movie comedy project based on ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', which would have starred John Cleese as the UN Secretary General, and had a race of aliens beating humans in athletic competitions, but the humans winning in all of the "absurd" record categories. The latter never proceeded past a treatment.

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''[link]

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' was a concept for a science-fiction comedy radio series pitched by Adams and radio producer Simon Brett to BBC Radio 4 in 1977. Adams came up with an outline for a pilot episode, as well as a few other stories (reprinted in Neil Gaiman's book ''Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion'') that could potentially be used in the series. According to Adams, the idea for the title ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' occurred to him while he lay drunk in a field in Innsbruck, Austria, gazing at the stars, though he joked that the BBC would instead claim it was Spain "probably because it's easier to spell". He had been wandering the countryside while carrying a book called the ''Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe'' when he ran into a town where everyone was either "deaf" and "dumb" or only spoke languages he could not understand. After wandering around and drinking for a while, he went to sleep in the middle of a field and was inspired by his inability to communicate with the townspeople. He later said that due to his constantly retelling this story of inspiration, he no longer had any memory of the moment of inspiration itself, and only remembered his retelling of that moment.

Despite the original outline, Adams was said to make up the stories as he wrote. He turned to John Lloyd for help with the final two episodes of the first series. Lloyd contributed bits from an unpublished science fiction book of his own, called ''GiGax''. Very little of Lloyd's material survived in later adaptations of ''Hitchhiker's'', such as the novels and the TV series. The TV series itself was based on the first six radio episodes, but sections contributed by Lloyd were largely re-written.

BBC Radio 4 broadcast the first radio series weekly in the UK in March and April 1978. Following the success of the first series, another episode was recorded and broadcast, which was commonly known as the Christmas Episode. A second series of five episodes was broadcast one per night, during the week of 21–25 January 1980.

While working on the radio series (and with simultaneous projects such as ''The Pirate Planet'') Adams developed problems keeping to writing deadlines that only got worse as he published novels. Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for three weeks to ensure that ''So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish'' was completed. He was quoted as saying, "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by." Despite the difficulty with deadlines, Adams wrote five novels in the series, published in 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984, and 1992.

The books formed the basis for other adaptations, such as three-part comic book adaptations for each of the first three books, an interactive text-adventure computer game, and a photo-illustrated edition, published in 1994. This latter edition featured a 42 Puzzle designed by Adams, which was later incorporated into paperback covers of the first four ''Hitchhiker's'' novels (the paperback for the fifth re-used the artwork from the hardback edition).

In 1980 Adams also began attempts to turn the first ''Hitchhiker's'' novel into a movie, making several trips to Los Angeles, and working with a number of Hollywood studios and potential producers. The next year, 1981, the radio series became the basis for a BBC television mini-series broadcast in six parts. When he died in 2001 in California, he had been trying again to get the movie project started with Disney, which had bought the rights in 1998. The screenplay finally got a posthumous re-write by Karey Kirkpatrick, was green-lit in September 2003, and the resulting movie was released in 2005.

Radio producer Dirk Maggs had consulted with Adams, first in 1993, and later in 1997 and 2000 about creating a third radio series, based on the third novel in the ''Hitchhiker's'' series. They also vaguely discussed the possibilities of radio adaptations of the final two novels in the five-book "trilogy". As with the movie, this project was only realised after Adams's death. The third series, ''The Tertiary Phase'', was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2004 and was subsequently released on audio CD. With the aid of a recording of his reading of ''Life, the Universe and Everything'' and editing, Adams can be heard playing the part of Agrajag posthumously. ''So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish'' and ''Mostly Harmless'' made up the fourth and fifth radio series, respectively (on radio they were titled ''The Quandary Phase'' and ''The Quintessential Phase'') and these were broadcast in May and June 2005, and also subsequently released on Audio CD. The last episode in the last series (with a new, "more upbeat" ending) concluded with, "The very final episode of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' by Douglas Adams is affectionately dedicated to its author."

More recently, the film makers at Smoov Filmz adapted the anecdote that Arthur Dent relates about biscuits in ''So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish'' into a short film called "Cookies". Adams also discussed the real-life incident that inspired the anecdote in a 2001 speech, reprinted in his posthumous collection ''The Salmon of Doubt''. He also told the story on the radio programme ''It Makes Me Laugh'' on 19 July 1981.

''Dirk Gently'' series[link]

In between Adams's first trip to Madagascar with Mark Carwardine in 1985, and their series of travels that formed the basis for the radio series and non-fiction book ''Last Chance to See'', Adams wrote two other novels with a new cast of characters. ''Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'' was first published in 1987, and was described by its author as "a kind of ghost-horror-detective-time-travel-romantic-comedy-epic, mainly concerned with mud, music and quantum mechanics."

A sequel novel, ''The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'', was published a year later. This was an entirely original work, Adams's first since ''So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.'' After the book tour, Adams set off on his round-the-world excursion which supplied him with the material for ''Last Chance to See''.

''Doctor Who''[link]

Adams sent the script for the ''HHGG'' pilot radio programme to the ''Doctor Who'' production office in 1978, and was commissioned to write ''The Pirate Planet'' (see below). He had also previously attempted to submit a potential movie script, called "Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen," which later became his novel ''Life, the Universe and Everything'' (which in turn became the third ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' radio series). Adams then went on to serve as script editor on the show for its seventeenth season in 1979. Altogether, he wrote three ''Doctor Who'' serials starring Tom Baker as the Doctor:

''The Pirate Planet'' (the second serial in the "Key To Time" arc, in Season 16)

''City of Death'' (with producer Graham Williams, from an original storyline by writer David Fisher. It was transmitted under the pseudonym "David Agnew")

''Shada'' (only partially filmed and not broadcast due to industrial disputes)

The episodes authored by Adams are some of the few that have not been novelised as Adams would not allow anyone else to write them, and asked for a higher price than the publishers were willing to pay.

Adams was also known to allow in-jokes from ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' to appear in the ''Doctor Who'' stories he wrote and other stories on which he served as Script Editor. Subsequent writers have also inserted ''Hitchhiker's'' references, even as recently as 2007. Conversely, at least one reference to ''Doctor Who'' was worked into a ''Hitchhiker's'' novel. In ''Life, the Universe and Everything'', two characters travel in time and land on the pitch at Lord's Cricket Ground. The reaction of the radio commentators to their sudden appearance is very similar to the reactions of commentators in a scene in the eighth episode of the 1965–66 story ''The Daleks' Master Plan'', which has the Doctor's TARDIS materialise on the pitch at Lord's.

Elements of ''Shada'' and ''City of Death'' were reused in Adams's later novel ''Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'', in particular the character of Professor Chronotis. Big Finish Productions eventually remade ''Shada'' as an audio play starring Paul McGann as the Doctor. Accompanied by partially animated illustrations, it was webcast on the BBC website in 2003, and subsequently released as a two-CD set later that year. An omnibus edition of this version was broadcast on the digital radio station BBC7 on 10 December 2005.

Adams is credited with introducing a fan and later friend of his, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, to Dawkins's future wife, Lalla Ward, who had played the part of Romana in Doctor Who. Dawkins confirmed this in his eulogy of Adams.

When he was at school he wrote and performed a play called ''Doctor Which''.

Music[link]

Adams played the guitar left-handed and had a collection of twenty-four left-handed guitars when he died in 2001 (having received his first guitar in 1964). He also studied piano in the 1960s with the same teacher as Paul Wickens, the pianist who plays in Paul McCartney's band (and composed the music for the 2004–2005 editions of the ''Hitchhiker's Guide'' radio series). The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Procol Harum all had important influence on Adams's work.

Pink Floyd[link]

Adams included a direct reference to Pink Floyd in the original radio version of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', in which he describes the main characters surveying the landscape of an alien planet while Marvin, their android companion, hums Pink Floyd's "Shine on You Crazy Diamond". This was cut out of the CD version. Adams also compared the various noises that the kakapo makes to "Pink Floyd studio out-takes" in his nonfiction book on endangered species, ''Last Chance to See''.

Adams's official biography shares its name with the song "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd. Adams was friends with Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and, on the occasion of Adams's 42nd birthday (the number 42 having special significance, being the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything and also Adams's age when his daughter Polly was born), he was invited to make a guest appearance at Pink Floyd's 28 October 1994 concert at Earls Court in London, playing guitar on the songs "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse". Adams chose the name for Pink Floyd's 1994 album, ''The Division Bell'', by picking the words from the lyrics to one of its tracks, namely "High Hopes". Gilmour also performed at Adams's memorial service following his death in 2001, and what would have been Adams' 60th birthday party in 2012.

Procol Harum[link]

Douglas Adams was a friend of Gary Brooker, the lead singer, pianist and songwriter of the progressive rock band Procol Harum. Adams is known to have invited Brooker to one of the many parties that Adams held at his house. On one such occasion Gary Brooker performed the full (4 verse) version of his hit song "A Whiter Shade of Pale". Brooker also performed at Adams's memorial service.

Adams also appeared on stage with Brooker to perform "In Held Twas in I" at Redhill when the band's lyricist Keith Reid was not available. On several other occasions he had been known to introduce Procol Harum at their gigs.

Adams also let it be known that while writing he would listen to music, and this would occasionally influence his work. On one occasion the title track from the Procol Harum album ''Grand Hotel'' was playing when... }}

Computer games and projects[link]

Douglas Adams created an interactive fiction version of ''HHGG'' together with Steve Meretzky from Infocom in 1984. In 1986 he participated in a week-long brainstorming session with the Lucasfilm Games team for the game ''Labyrinth''. Later he was also involved in creating ''Bureaucracy'' (also by Infocom, but not based on any book; Adams wrote it as a parody of events in his own life). Adams was also responsible for the computer game ''Starship Titanic'', which was published in 1998 by Simon and Schuster. Terry Jones wrote the accompanying book, entitled ''Douglas Adams’s Starship Titanic'', since Adams was too busy with the computer game to do both. In April 1999, Adams initiated the h2g2 collaborative writing project, an experimental attempt at making ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' a reality, and at harnessing the collective brainpower of the internet community.

In 1990 Adams wrote and presented a television documentary programme ''Hyperland'' which featured Tom Baker as a "software agent" (similar to the "Assistants" used in several versions of Microsoft Office, derived from their failed "Bob" program), and interviews with Ted Nelson, which was essentially about the use of hypertext. Although Adams did not ''invent'' hypertext, he was an early adopter and advocate of it. This was the same year that Tim Berners-Lee used the idea of hypertext in his HTML.

Personal beliefs and activism[link]

Atheism and views on religion[link]

Adams described himself as a "radical atheist", adding ''radical'' for emphasis so he would not be asked if he meant agnostic. He told American Atheists that this made things easier, but most importantly it conveyed the fact that he really meant it. "I am convinced that there is not a god," he said. Despite this, he remained fascinated by religion because of its effect on human affairs. "I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I’ve thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing."

The evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins in ''The God Delusion'' uses Adams's influence throughout to exemplify arguments for non-belief; Dawkins jokingly states that Adams is "possibly [my] only convert" to atheism. The book is dedicated to Adams, quoting him, "Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

Environmental activism[link]

Adams was also an environmental activist who campaigned on behalf of a number of endangered species. This activism included the production of the non-fiction radio series ''Last Chance to See'', in which he and naturalist Mark Carwardine visited rare species such as the Kakapo and Baiji, and the publication of a tie-in book of the same name. In 1992 this was made into a CD-ROM combination of audio book, e-book and picture slide show.

Adams and Mark Carwardine contributed the 'Meeting a Gorilla' passage from ''Last Chance to See'' to the book ''The Great Ape Project''. This book, edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer launched a wider-scale project in 1993, which calls for the extension of moral equality to include all great apes, human and non-human.

In 1994 he participated in a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro while wearing a rhino suit for the British charity organisation ''Save the Rhino''. Many different people participated in the same climb and took turns wearing the rhino suit; Adams wore the suit while travelling to the mountain before the climb proper began. About £100,000 were raised through that event, benefiting schools in Kenya and a Black Rhinoceros preservation programme in Tanzania. Adams was also an active supporter of the ''Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund''. Since 2003, ''Save the Rhino'' has held an annual Douglas Adams Memorial Lecture around the time of his birthday to raise money for environmental campaigns. The lectures in the series are:

2003 Richard Dawkins – ''Queerer than we can suppose: the strangeness of science''

2004 Robert Swan – ''Mission Antarctica''

2005 Mark Carwardine – ''Last Chance to See... Just a bit more''

2006 Robert Winston – ''Is the Human an Endangered Species?''

2007 Richard Leakey – ''Wildlife Management in East Africa – Is there a future?''

2008 Steven Pinker – ''The Stuff of Thought, Language as a Window into Human Nature''

2009 Benedict Allen – ''Unbreakable''

2010 Marcus du Sautoy – ''42: the answer to life, the universe and prime numbers''

2011 Brian Cox – ''The Universe and Why We Should Explore It''

Technology[link]

Adams was a serious fan of technology. Though he did not buy his first word processor until 1982, he had considered one as early as 1979. He was quoted as saying that until 1982, he had difficulties with "the impenetrable barrier of jargon. Words were flying backwards and forwards without concepts riding on their backs." In 1982 his first purchase was a 'Nexus'. In 1983, when he and Jane Belson went out to Los Angeles, he bought a DEC Rainbow. Upon their return to England, Adams bought an Apricot, then a BBC Micro and a Tandy 1000. In ''Last Chance to See'' Adams mentions his Cambridge Z88, which he had taken to Zaire on a quest to find the Northern White Rhinoceros.

Adams's posthumously published work, ''The Salmon of Doubt'', features multiple articles by him on the subject of technology, including reprints of articles that originally ran in ''MacUser'' magazine, and in ''The Independent on Sunday'' newspaper. In these Adams claims that one of the first computers he ever saw was a Commodore PET, and that his love affair with the Apple Macintosh first began after seeing one at Infocom's headquarters in Massachusetts in 1983.

As he wrote himself:

Adams was a Macintosh user from the time they first came out in 1984 until his death in 2001. He was the first person to buy a Mac in Europe (the second being Stephen Fry – though some accounts differ on this, saying Fry bought his Mac first. Fry himself claims he was second to Adams). Adams was also an "Apple Master", one of several celebrities whom Apple made into spokespeople for its products (other Apple Masters included John Cleese and Gregory Hines). Adams's contributions included a rock video that he created using the first version of iMovie with footage featuring his daughter Polly. The video was available on Adams's .Mac homepage. Adams even installed and started using the first release of Mac OS X in the weeks leading up to his death. His very last post to his own forum was in praise of Mac OS X and the possibilities of its Cocoa programming framework. He said it was ''"awesome..."'', which was also the last word he wrote on his site. Adams can also be seen in the ''Omnibus'' tribute included with the Region One/NTSC DVD release of the TV adaptation of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide'' using Mac OS X on his PowerBook G3.

Adams used e-mail extensively from the technology's infancy, adopting a very early version of e-mail to correspond with Steve Meretzky during the pair's collaboration on Infocom's version of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. While living in New Mexico in 1993 he set up another e-mail address and began posting to his own USENET newsgroup, alt.fan.douglas-adams, and occasionally, when his computer was acting up, to the comp.sys.mac hierarchy. Many of his posts are now archived through Google. Challenges to the authenticity of his messages later led Adams to set up a message forum on his own website to avoid the issue. Adams was also a keynote speaker for the April 2001 Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco, one of the major technical conferences on embedded system engineering. In his keynote speech, he shared his vision of technology and how it should contribute in everyday – and every man's – life.

Personal life[link]

Adams moved to Upper Street, Islington, in 1981 and to Duncan Terrace in Islington in the late 1980s.

In the early 1980s Adams had an affair with novelist Sally Emerson, who was separated from her husband at that time. Adams later dedicated his book ''Life, the Universe and Everything'' to Emerson. In 1981 Emerson returned to her husband, Peter Stothard, a contemporary of Adams's at Brentwood School, and later editor of ''The Times''. Adams was soon introduced by friends to Jane Belson, with whom he later became romantically involved. Belson was the "lady barrister" mentioned in the jacket-flap biography printed in his books during the mid-1980s ("He [Adams] lives in Islington with a lady barrister and an Apple Macintosh"). The two lived in Los Angeles together during 1983 while Adams worked on an early screenplay adaptation of ''Hitchhiker's''. When the deal fell through, they moved to London, and after several separations ("He is currently not certain where he lives, or with whom") and an aborted engagement, they married on 25 November 1991. Adams and Belson had one daughter together, Polly Jane Rocket Adams, born on 22 June 1994, shortly after Adams turned 42. In 1999 the family moved from London to Santa Barbara, California, where they lived until his death. Following the funeral, Jane Belson and Polly Adams returned to London. Jane died on 7 September 2011.

Death[link]

Adams died of a heart attack on 11 May 2001, aged 49, after resting from his regular workout at a private gym in Montecito, California. He had unknowingly suffered a gradual narrowing of the coronary arteries, which led at that moment to a myocardial infarction and a fatal cardiac arrhythmia. Adams had been due to deliver the commencement address at Harvey Mudd College on 13 May. His funeral was held on 16 May in Santa Barbara, California. His remains were subsequently cremated and the ashes placed in Highgate Cemetery in north London in June 2002.

A memorial service was held on 17 September 2001 at St. Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, London. This became the first church service of any kind broadcast live on the web by the BBC. Video clips of the service are still available on the BBC's website for download.

One of his last public appearances was a talk given at the University of California, Santa Barbara, ''Parrots, the universe and everything'', recorded days before his death. A full transcript of the talk is also available.

In May 2002 ''The Salmon of Doubt'' was published, containing many short stories, essays, and letters, as well as eulogies from Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry (in the UK edition), Christopher Cerf (in the U.S. edition), and Terry Jones (in the U.S. paperback edition). It also includes eleven chapters of his long-awaited but unfinished novel, ''The Salmon of Doubt'', which was originally intended to become a new Dirk Gently novel, but might have later become the sixth ''Hitchhiker'' novel.

Other events after Adams's death included a webcast production of ''Shada'', allowing the complete story to be told, radio dramatisations of the final three books in the ''Hitchhiker's'' series, and the completion of the film adaptation of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. The film, released in 2005, posthumously credits Adams as a producer, and several art design elements – most notably a head-shaped planet seen near the end of the film – incorporated Adams's features.

A 12-part radio series based on the Dirk Gently novels was announced in 2007, with annual transmissions starting in October of that year.

BBC Radio 4 also commissioned a third Dirk Gently radio series based on the incomplete chapters of ''The Salmon of Doubt'', and written by Kim Fuller; however, this has now been dropped in favour of a BBC TV series based on the two completed novels. A sixth ''Hitchhiker'' novel, ''And Another Thing...'', by ''Artemis Fowl'' author Eoin Colfer, was released on 12 October 2009 (the 30th anniversary of the first book), published with the full support of Adams's estate. A BBC Radio 4 ''Book at Bedtime'' adaptation and an audio book soon followed.

In 2011, over 3000 people took part in a public vote to choose the subjects of People's Plaques in Islington. As a result, it was decided to erect a plaque in Adams's honour, on a date yet to be announced. Adams received 489 votes.

Works[link]

''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' Episode 45, ''Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Liberal Party'' (1972)

''The Private Life of Genghis Khan'' (1975)

''The Pirate Planet'', a Doctor Who serial first broadcast in 1978

''Dr Snuggles'', contributed to a childrens TV series (1979)

''City of Death'', a Doctor Who serial, cowritten with Graham Williams, based on a story by David Fisher, first broadcast October 1979

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (1979)

''Shada'' (1979–1980), a Doctor Who serial

''The Restaurant at the End of the Universe'' (1980)

''Life, the Universe and Everything'' (1982)

''The Meaning of Liff'' (1983, with John Lloyd)

''So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish'' (1984)

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (computer game)'' (1984, with Steve Meretzky)

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Original Radio Scripts'' (1985, with Geoffrey Perkins)

''Young Zaphod Plays It Safe (short story)'' (1986)

''A Christmas Fairly Story'' (1986, with Terry Jones), and

''Supplement to The Meaning of Liff'' (1986, with John Lloyd and Stephen Fry), both part of

* ''The Utterly Utterly Merry Comic Relief Christmas Book'' (1986, edited with Peter Fincham)

''Bureaucracy (computer game)'' (1987)

''Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency'' (1987)

''The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul'' (1988)

''Hyperland'' (TV documentary) (1990)

''The Deeper Meaning of Liff'' (1990, with John Lloyd)

''Last Chance to See'' (1990, with Mark Carwardine)

''Mostly Harmless'' (1992)

''The Illustrated Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (1994)

''Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic'' (1997), written by Terry Jones, based on an idea by Adams

''Starship Titanic'' (computer game) (1998)

''h2g2'' (internet project) (1999)

''The Internet: The Last Battleground of the 20th century'' (radio series) (2000)

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future'' (radio series) (2001) final project for BBC Radio 4 before his death

''Parrots, the universe and everything'' (2001)

''The Salmon of Doubt'' (2002), unfinished novel manuscript (11 chapters), short stories, essays, and interviews (also available as an audiobook, read by Simon Jones)

''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (film)'' (2005)

Works about[link]

Articles [link]

Herbert, R. (1980). The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Book Review). Library Journal, 105(16), 1882.

Adams, J., & Brown, R. (1981). The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Book Review). School Library Journal, 27(5), 74.

Nickerson, S. L. (1982). The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Book). Library Journal, 107(4), 476.

Nickerson, S. L. (1982). Life, the Universe, and Everything (Book). Library Journal, 107(18), 2007.

Morner, C. (1982). The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Book Review). School Library Journal, 28(8), 87.

Morner, C. (1983). Life, the Universe and Everything (Book Review). School Library Journal, 29(6), 93.

Shorb, B. (1985). So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (Book). School Library Journal, 31(6), 90.

The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul (Book). (1989). Atlantic (02769077), 263(4), 99.

Hoffert, B., & Quinn, J. (1990). Last Chance To See (Book). Library Journal, 115(16), 77.

Reed, S. S., & Cook, I. I. (1991). Dances with kakapos. People, 35(19), 79.

Last Chance to See (Book). (1991). Science News, 139(8), 126.

Field, M. M., & Steinberg, S. S. (1991). Douglas Adams. Publishers Weekly, 238(6), 62.

Dieter, W. (1991). Last Chance to See (Book). Smithsonian, 22(3), 140.

Dykhuis, R. (1991). Last Chance To See (Book). Library Journal, 116(1), 140.

Beatty, J. (1991). Good Show (Book). Atlantic (02769077), 267(3), 131.

A guide to the future. (1992). Maclean's, 106(44), 51.

Zinsser, J. (1993). Audio reviews: Fiction. Publishers Weekly, 240(9), 24.

Taylor, B., & Annichiarico, M. (1993). Audio reviews. Library Journal, 118(2), 132.

Good reads. (1995). NetGuide, 2(4), 109.

Stone, B. (1998). The unsinkable starship. Newsweek, 131(15), 78.

Gaslin, G. (2001). Galaxy Quest. Entertainment Weekly, (599), 79.

So long, and thanks for all the fish. (2001). Economist, 359(8222), 79.

Geier, T., & Raftery, B. M. (2001). Legacy. Entertainment Weekly, (597), 11.

Passages. (2001). Maclean's, 114(21), 13.

Don't panic! Douglas Adams to keynote Embedded show. (2001). Embedded Systems Programming, 14(3), 10.

Ehrenman, G. (2001). World Wide Weird. InternetWeek, (862), 15.

Zaleski, J. (2002). The Salmon of Doubt (Book). Publishers Weekly, 249(15), 43.

Mort, J. (2002). The Salmon of Doubt (Book). Booklist, 98(16), 1386.

Lewis, D. L. (2002). Last Time Round The Galaxy. Quadrant Magazine, 46(9), 84.

Burns, A. (2002). The Salmon of Doubt (Book). Library Journal, 127(15), 111.

Burns, A., & Rhodes, B. (2002). The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Book). Library Journal, 127(19), 118.

Kaveney, R. (2002). A cheerful whale. TLS, (5173), 23.

Pearl, N., & Welch, R. (2003). The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (Book). Library Journal, 128(11), 124.

Preying on composite materials. (2003). R&D; Magazine, 45(6), 44.

Webb, N. (2003). The Berkeley Hotel hostage. Bookseller, (5069), 25.

The author who toured the universe. (2003). Bookseller, (5060), 35.

Osmond, A. (2005). Only human. Sight & Sound, 15(5), 12-15.

Culture vulture. (2005). Times Educational Supplement, (4640), 19.

Maughan, S. (2005). Audio Bestsellers/Fiction. Publishers Weekly, 252(30), 17.

Hitchhiker At The Science Museum. (2005). In Britain, 14(10), 9.

Rea, A. (2005). The Adams asteroids. New Scientist, 185(2488), 31.

Most Improbable Adventure. (2005). Popular Mechanics, 182(5), 32.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: The Tertiary Phase. (2005). Publishers Weekly, 252(14), 21.

Bartelt, K. R. (2005). Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams. Library Journal, 130(4), 86.

Larsen, D. (2005). I was a teenage android. New Zealand Listener, 198(3390), 37-38.

Tanner, J. C. (2005). Simplicity: it's hard. Telecom Asia, 16(6), 6.

Nielsen Bookscan Charts. (2005). Bookseller, (5175), 18-21.

Buena Vista launches regional site to push Hitchhiker's movie. (2005). New Media Age, 9.

Shynola bring Beckland to life. (2005). Creative Review, 25(3), 24-26.

Carwardine, M. (2007, September 15). The baiji: So long and thanks for all the fish. New Scientist. pp. 50–53.

Czarniawska, B. (2008). Accounting and gender across times and places: An excursion into fiction. Accounting, Organizations & Society, 33(1), 33-47.

Pope, M. (2008). Life, the Universe, Religion and Science. Issues, (82), 31-34.

Bearne, S. (2008). BBC builds site to trail Last Chance To See TV series. New Media Age, 08.

Arrow to reissue Adams. (2008). Bookseller, (5352), 14.

Page, B. (2008). Colfer is new Hitchhiker. Bookseller, (5350), 7.

I've got a perfect puzzle for you. (2009). Bookseller, (5404), 42.

Mostly Harmless…. (2009). Bookseller, (5374), 46.

Penguin and PanMac hitch a ride together. (2009). Bookseller, (5373), 6.

Adams, Douglas. Britannica Biographies [serial online]. October 2010;:1

Douglas (Noël) Adams (1952–2001). Hutchinson's Biography Database [serial online]. July 2011;:1

My life in books. (2011). Times Educational Supplement, (4940), 27.

See also[link]

Towel Day is celebrated by Douglas Adams's fans annually on 25 May

Notes[link]

References[link]

Adams, Douglas (1998). Is there an Artificial God?, speech at ''Digital Biota 2'', Cambridge, England, September 1998.

Adams, Douglas (2002). ''The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time'', Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-76657-1

Dawkins, Richard (2001). Lament for Douglas Adams, ''The Guardian'', 14 May 2001.

Dawkins, Richard (2003). "Eulogy for Douglas Adams," in ''A devil's chaplain: reflections on hope, lies, science, and love''. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Felch, Laura (2004). Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Neil Gaiman, May 2004

Ray, Mohit K (2007). ''Atlantic Companion to Literature in English'', Atlantic Publishers and Distributors. ISBN 81-269-0832-7

Simpson, M. J. (2003). ''Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams'', Justin, Charles and Co. ISBN 1-932112-17-0

Webb, Nick (2005a). ''Wish You Were Here: The Official Biography of Douglas Adams''. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-47650-6

Webb, Nick (2005b). "Adams, Douglas Noël (1952–2001)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, January 2005, accessed 25 October 2005.

Further reading[link]

Adams's official web site, established by him, and still operated by The Digital Village

Adams's .mac homepage

Douglas Adams Quotes

Douglas Adams speech at Digital Biota 2 (1998) (The audio of the speech)

Guardian Books "Author Page", with profile and links to further articles.

Douglas Adams & his Computer article about his Mac IIfx

BBC2 "Omnibus" tribute to Adams, presented by Kirsty Wark, 4 August 2001

Mueller, Rick and Greengrass, Joel (2002).''Life, The Universe and Douglas Adams'', documentary.

Simpson, M.J. (2001). ''The Pocket Essential Hitchhiker's Guide''. ISBN 1-903047-40-4. Updated April 2005 ISBN 1-904048-46-3

Parrots, the Universe and Everything, 90 min talk at University of California Santa Barbara, 2001

External links[link]

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name	Richard Dawkins
birth name	Clinton Richard Dawkins
birth date	March 26, 1941
birth place	Nairobi, Kenya Colony
nationality	British
education	MA, DPhil (Oxon)
alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
doctoral advisor	Nikolaas Tinbergen
doctoral students	Alan Grafen, Mark Ridley
occupation	Ethologist
years active	1967–present
employer	University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of Oxford
organization	Fellow of the Royal SocietyFellow of the Royal Society of Literature
known for	Gene-centered view of evolution, concept of the meme, as well as advocacy of atheism and science.
notable works	''The Selfish Gene'' (1976)''The Extended Phenotype'' (1982)''The Blind Watchmaker'' (1986)''The God Delusion'' (2006)
influences	Charles Darwin, Ronald Fisher, George C. Williams, W. D. Hamilton, Daniel Dennett, Bertrand Russell
spouse	Marian Stamp Dawkins (m. 1967–1984)Eve Barham (m. 1984–?)Lalla Ward (m. 1992–present)
children	Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984)
parents	Clinton John DawkinsJean Mary Vyvyan (née Ladner)
awards	Faraday Award (1990)Kistler Prize (2001)
website	The Richard Dawkins Foundation
footnotes	}}

Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL (born 26 March 1941), known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was the University of Oxford's Professor for Public Understanding of Science from 1995 until 2008.

Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book ''The Selfish Gene'', which popularised the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the term ''meme''. In 1982 he introduced an influential concept into evolutionary biology, presented in his book ''The Extended Phenotype'', that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms.

Dawkins is an atheist, a vice president of the British Humanist Association, and a supporter of the Brights movement. He is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design. In his 1986 book ''The Blind Watchmaker'', he argued against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he described evolutionary processes as analogous to a ''blind'' watchmaker. He has since written several popular science books, and makes regular television and radio appearances, predominantly discussing these topics. In his 2006 book ''The God Delusion'', Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion—"a fixed false belief." As of January 2010 the English-language version has sold more than two million copies and had been translated into 31 languages.

Biography [link]

Dawkins was born in Nairobi, Kenya. His father, Clinton John Dawkins (1915–2010), returning to England in 1949, when Dawkins was eight. His father had inherited a country estate, Over Norton Park, which he turned into a commercial farm. Both his parents were interested in natural sciences; they answered Dawkins' questions in scientific terms.

Dawkins describes his childhood as "a normal Anglican upbringing". He was confirmed, and embraced Christianity until his mid-teens, at which point he concluded that the theory of evolution was a better explanation for life's complexity, and ceased believing in a god. Dawkins states: "the main residual reason why I was religious was from being so impressed with the complexity of life and feeling that it had to have a designer, and I think it was when I realised that Darwinism was a far superior explanation that pulled the rug out from under the argument of design. And that left me with nothing." Dawkins' research in this period concerned models of animal decision-making.

From 1967 to 1969, he was an assistant professor of zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. During this period, the students and faculty at UC Berkeley were largely opposed to the ongoing Vietnam War, and Dawkins became heavily involved in the anti-war demonstrations and activities. He returned to the University of Oxford in 1970 taking a position as a lecturer, and in 1990, as a reader in zoology. In 1995 he was appointed Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, a position that had been endowed by Charles Simonyi with the express intention that the holder "be expected to make important contributions to the public understanding of some scientific field", and that its first holder should be Richard Dawkins.

Since 1970 he has been a fellow of New College. He has delivered a number of inaugural and other lectures, including the Henry Sidgwick Memorial Lecture (1989), first Erasmus Darwin Memorial Lecture (1990), Michael Faraday Lecture (1991), T. H. Huxley Memorial Lecture (1992), Irvine Memorial Lecture (1997), Sheldon Doyle Lecture (1999), Tinbergen Lecture (2004) and Tanner Lectures (2003). In 1991 he gave the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures for Children. He has also served as editor of a number of journals, and has acted as editorial advisor to the ''Encarta Encyclopedia'' and the ''Encyclopedia of Evolution''. He is a senior editor of the Council for Secular Humanism's ''Free Inquiry'' magazine, for which he also writes a column. He has been a member of the editorial board of ''Skeptic'' magazine since its foundation.

He has sat on judging panels for awards as diverse as the Royal Society's Faraday Award and the British Academy Television Awards, and has been president of the Biological Sciences section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004 Balliol College, Oxford instituted the Dawkins Prize, awarded for "outstanding research into the ecology and behaviour of animals whose welfare and survival may be endangered by human activities". In September 2008, he retired from his professorship, announcing plans to "write a book aimed at youngsters in which he will warn them against believing in 'anti-scientific' fairytales."

Personal life [link]

On 19 August 1967, Dawkins married fellow ethologist Marian Stamp in Annestown, County Waterford, Ireland; they divorced in 1984. Later that same year, on 1 June, he married Eve Barham (19 August 1951–28 February 1999) in Oxford. They had a daughter, Juliet Emma Dawkins (born 1984, Oxford). Dawkins and Barham also divorced and she later died of cancer. In 1992 he married actress Lalla Ward in Kensington and Chelsea, London. Dawkins met her through their mutual friend Douglas Adams, who had worked with her on the BBC's ''Doctor Who''.

Work [link]

Evolutionary biology [link]

In his scientific works, Dawkins is best known for his popularisation of the gene-centred view of evolution. This view is most clearly set out in his books ''The Selfish Gene'' (1976), where he notes that "all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities", and ''The Extended Phenotype'' (1982), in which he describes natural selection as "the process whereby replicators out-propagate each other". In his role as an ethologist, interested in animal behaviour and its relation to natural selection, he advocates the idea that the gene is the principal unit of selection in evolution.

Dawkins has consistently been sceptical about non-adaptive processes in evolution (such as spandrels, described by Gould and Lewontin) and about selection at levels "above" that of the gene. He is particularly sceptical about the practical possibility or importance of group selection as a basis for understanding altruism. This behaviour appears at first to be an evolutionary paradox, since helping others costs precious resources and decreases one's own fitness. Previously, many had interpreted this as an aspect of group selection: individuals were doing what was best for the survival of the population or species as a whole, and not specifically for themselves. British evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton had used the gene-centred view to explain altruism in terms of inclusive fitness and kin selection − that individuals behave altruistically toward their close relatives, who share many of their own genes. Similarly, Robert Trivers, thinking in terms of the gene-centred model, developed the theory of reciprocal altruism, whereby one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of future reciprocation. Dawkins popularised these ideas in ''The Selfish Gene'', and developed them in his own work.

He has also been strongly critical of the Gaia philosophy theory of the independent scientist James Lovelock.

Critics of Dawkins' approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of ''selection'' − of a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce − is misleading, but that the gene could be better described as a unit of ''evolution'' − of the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population. In ''The Selfish Gene'', Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams' definition of the gene as "that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency." Another common objection is that genes cannot survive alone, but must cooperate to build an individual, and therefore cannot be an independent "unit". In ''The Extended Phenotype'', Dawkins suggests that because of genetic recombination and sexual reproduction, from an individual gene's viewpoint all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.

Advocates for higher levels of selection such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliot Sober suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins clashed in print concerning ''The Selfish Gene'', has criticised gene selection, memetics and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist and suggests that the popularity of Dawkins' work is due to factors in the Zeitgeist such as the increased individualism of the Thatcher/Reagan decades.

In a set of controversies over the mechanisms and interpretation of evolution (the so-called 'Darwin Wars'), one faction was often named after Dawkins and its rival after the American palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould, reflecting the pre-eminence of each as a populariser of pertinent ideas. In particular, Dawkins and Gould have been prominent commentators in the controversy over sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, with Dawkins generally approving and Gould generally being critical. A typical example of Dawkins' position was his scathing review of ''Not in Our Genes'' by Steven Rose, Leon J. Kamin and Richard C. Lewontin. Two other thinkers on the subject often considered to be allied to Dawkins are Steven Pinker and Daniel Dennett; Dennett has promoted a gene-centred view of evolution and defended reductionism in biology. Despite their academic disagreements, Dawkins and Gould did not have a hostile personal relationship, and Dawkins dedicated a large portion of his 2003 book ''A Devil's Chaplain'' posthumously to Gould, who had died the previous year.

Dawkins' book ''The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution'' expounds the evidence for biological evolution. All of his previous works dealing with evolution had assumed its truth, and not explicitly provided the evidence to this effect. Dawkins felt that this represented a gap in his oeuvre, and decided to write the book to coincide with Darwin's bicentennial year.

Meme [link]

Dawkins coined the word ''meme'' (the behavioural equivalent of a gene) as a way to encourage readers to think about how Darwinian principles might be extended beyond the realm of genes. Indeed, it was intended as an extension of his "replicators" argument, but it took on a life of its own in the hands of other authors such as Daniel Dennett and Susan Blackmore. These popularisations then led to the emergence of the field of memetics, from which he has distanced himself.

Dawkins' ''memes'' refer to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator of a certain idea or a complex of ideas. He hypothesised that people could view many cultural entities as capable of such replication, generally through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient (although not perfect) copiers of information and behaviour. Memes are not always copied perfectly, and might indeed become refined, combined or otherwise modified with other ideas, resulting in new memes, which may themselves prove more, or less, efficient replicators than their predecessors, thus providing a framework for a hypothesis of cultural evolution, analogous to the theory of biological evolution based on genes.

Although Dawkins invented the specific term ''meme'' independently, he has not claimed that the idea itself was entirely novel, and there have been other expressions for similar ideas in the past. For instance, John Laurent has suggested that the term may have derived from the work of the little-known German biologist Richard Semon. In 1904 Semon published ''Die Mneme'' (which appeared in English in 1924 as ''The Mneme''). This book discussed the cultural transmission of experiences, with insights parallel to those of Dawkins. Laurent also found the term ''mneme'' used in Maurice Maeterlinck's ''The Life of the White Ant'' (1926), and has highlighted the similarities to Dawkins' concept. Author James Gleick describes Dawkins’ concept of the meme as "his most famous memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytizing against religiosity".

Criticism of creationism [link]

Dawkins is a prominent critic of creationism (the religious belief that humanity, life and the universe were created by a deity, without recourse to evolution). He has described the Young Earth creationist view that the Earth is only a few thousand years old as "a preposterous, mind-shrinking falsehood", and his 1986 book, ''The Blind Watchmaker'', contains a sustained critique of the argument from design, an important creationist argument. In the book, Dawkins argued against the watchmaker analogy made famous by the 18th-century English theologian William Paley in his book ''Natural Theology''. Paley argued that, just as a watch is too complicated and too functional to have sprung into existence merely by accident, so too must all living things, with their far greater complexity, be purposefully designed. Dawkins shares the view generally held by scientists that natural selection is sufficient to explain the apparent functionality and non-random complexity of the biological world, and can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, albeit as an automatic, nonintelligent, ''blind'' watchmaker.

thumb|left|Dawkins at the 34th annual conference of American Atheists, 2008In 1986 Dawkins participated in an Oxford Union debate, in which he and English biologist John Maynard Smith debated Young Earth creationist A. E. Wilder-Smith and Edgar Andrews, president of the Biblical Creation Society. In general, however, Dawkins has followed the advice of his late colleague Stephen Jay Gould and refused to participate in formal debates with creationists because "what they seek is the oxygen of respectability", and doing so would "give them this oxygen by the mere act of ''engaging'' with them at all". He suggests that creationists "don't mind being beaten in an argument. What matters is that we give them recognition by bothering to argue with them in public."

In a December 2004 interview with American journalist Bill Moyers, Dawkins said that "among the things that science does know, evolution is about as certain as anything we know." When Moyers questioned him on the use of the word ''theory'', Dawkins stated that "evolution has been observed. It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening." He added that "it is rather like a detective coming on a murder after the scene... the detective hasn't actually seen the murder take place, of course. But what you do see is a massive clue... Huge quantities of circumstantial evidence. It might as well be spelled out in words of English."

Dawkins has ardently opposed the inclusion of intelligent design in science education, describing it as "not a scientific argument at all, but a religious one". He has been referred to in the media as "Darwin's Rottweiler", a reference to English biologist T. H. Huxley, who was known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's evolutionary ideas. He has been a strong critic of the British organisation Truth in Science, which promotes the teaching of creationism in state schools, and he plans—through the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science—to subsidise the delivery of books, DVDs and pamphlets to schools, in order to counteract what he has described as an "educational scandal".

Advocacy of atheism [link]

Dawkins is an outspoken atheist and a prominent critic of religion. In an interview with Thomas Bass for a book published in 1994 he described himself as a "fairly militant atheist". In 1996, when asked if he would prefer to be known as a scientist or a militant atheist, he replied "Bertrand Russell called himself the Passionate Sceptic. It's aiming high, but I'll shoot for that." Dawkins is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society, a vice-president of the British Humanist Association (since 1996), a Distinguished Supporter of the Humanist Society of Scotland, a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board, a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism, and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. In 2003 he became a signatory of the humanist manifesto ''Humanism and Its Aspirations'', published by the American Humanist Association. As a result of his advocacy of atheism, Dawkins has sometimes been described as a vocal, militant rationalist, and as "the UK's Chief Atheist".

Dawkins believes that his own atheism is the logical extension of his understanding of evolution and that religion is largely incompatible with science. In his 1986 book ''The Blind Watchmaker'', Dawkins wrote:

{{blockquote| An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. }}

In his 1991 essay "Viruses of the Mind" (from which the term ''faith-sufferer'' originated), he suggested that memetic theory might analyse and explain the phenomenon of religious belief and some of the common characteristics of religions, such as the belief that punishment awaits non-believers. According to Dawkins, faith − belief that is not based on evidence − is one of the world's great evils. He claims it to be analogous to the smallpox virus, though more difficult to eradicate. Dawkins is well known for his contempt for religious extremism, from Islamist terrorism to Christian fundamentalism; but he has also argued with liberal believers and religious scientists, from biologists Kenneth Miller and Francis Collins to theologians Alister McGrath and Richard Harries. Dawkins has stated that his opposition to religion is twofold, claiming it to be both a source of conflict and a justification for belief without evidence. However, he describes himself as a "cultural Christian", and proposed the slogan "Atheists for Jesus".

Following the 11 September 2001 attacks, when asked how the world might have changed, Dawkins responded:

{{blockquote| Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful! }}

Dawkins has especially risen to prominence in contemporary public debates relating science and religion since the publication of his 2006 book ''The God Delusion'', which has achieved greater sales figures worldwide than any of his other works to date. Its success has been seen by many as indicative of a change in the contemporary cultural zeitgeist, central to a recent rise in the popularity of atheistic literature. ''The God Delusion'' was praised by among others the Nobel laureates Sir Harold Kroto and James D. Watson and by psychologist Steven Pinker. In the book, Dawkins suggested that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind. He sees education and consciousness-raising as the primary tools in opposing what he considers to be religious dogma and indoctrination. These tools include the fight against certain stereotypes, and he has adopted the term ''Bright'' as a way of associating positive public connotations with those who possess a naturalistic worldview. Dawkins notes that feminists have succeeded in arousing widespread embarrassment at the routine use of "he" instead of "she". Similarly, he suggests, a phrase such as "Catholic child" or "Muslim child" should be considered just as socially absurd as, for instance, "Marxist child": children should not be classified based on their parents' ideological beliefs. According to Dawkins, there is no such thing as a Christian child or a Muslim child, as children have about as much capacity to make the decision to become Christians or Muslims as they do to become Marxists. Critics have said that the programme gave too much time to marginal figures and extremists, and that Dawkins' confrontational style did not help his cause and exhibited similarities with the approaches of religious fundamentalists more than with the approaches of the dispassionate, analytic approach of 'hard' science; Dawkins rejected these claims, citing the number of moderate religious broadcasts in everyday media as providing a suitable balance to the extremists in the programmes. He further remarked that someone who is deemed an "extremist" in a religiously moderate country may well be considered "mainstream" in a religiously conservative one. The unedited recordings of Dawkins' conversations with Alister McGrath and Richard Harries, including material unused in the broadcast version, have been made available online by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

Dawkins' work has been controversial, and a number of Christian thinkers have responded to it. For example, Oxford theologian Alister McGrath (author of ''The Dawkins Delusion'' and ''Dawkins' God'') maintains that Dawkins is ignorant of Christian theology and therefore unable to engage religion and faith intelligently. In reply, Dawkins asks "do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in leprechauns?", and − in the paperback edition of ''The God Delusion'' − he refers to the American biologist PZ Myers, who has satirised this line of argument as "The Courtier's Reply". Dawkins had an extended debate with McGrath at the 2007 ''Sunday Times'' Literary Festival.

Dawkins argues that "the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other". He disagrees with Stephen Jay Gould's principle of nonoverlapping magisteria. In an interview with ''Time'' magazine, Dawkins said:

I think that Gould's separate compartments was a purely political ploy to win middle-of-the-road religious people to the science camp. But it's a very empty idea. There are plenty of places where religion does not keep off the scientific turf. Any belief in miracles is flat contradictory not just to the facts of science but to the spirit of science.

Astrophysicist Martin Rees, who has described himself as an unbeliever who identifies with Christianity from a cultural perspective, has suggested that Dawkins' attack on mainstream religion is unhelpful. Regarding Rees' claim in his book ''Our Cosmic Habitat'' that "such questions lie beyond science", Dawkins asks "what expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that scientists cannot?" Elsewhere, Dawkins has written that "there's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic, and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority or revelation." He has said that the publication of ''The God Delusion'' is "probably the culmination" of his campaign against religion.

In 2007 Dawkins founded the Out Campaign to encourage atheists worldwide to declare their stance publicly and proudly. Inspired by the gay rights movement, Dawkins hopes that atheists' identifying of themselves as such, and thereby increasing public awareness of how many people hold these views, will reduce the negative opinion of atheism among the religious majority.

In September 2008, following a complaint by Islamic creationist Adnan Oktar, a court in Turkey blocked access to Dawkins' website ''richarddawkins.net''. The court decision was made due to "insult to personality". As of 8 July 2011, ''richarddawkins.net'' is no longer blocked in Turkey.

In October 2008, Dawkins officially supported the UK's first atheist advertising initiative, the Atheist Bus Campaign. Created by Guardian journalist Ariane Sherine and administered by the British Humanist Association the campaign aimed to raise funds to place atheist adverts on buses in the London area, and Dawkins pledged to match the amount raised by atheists, up to a maximum of £5,500. However, the campaign was an unprecedented success, raising over £100,000 in its first four days, and generating global press coverage. The campaign, started in January 2009, features adverts across the UK with the slogan: "''There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.''" Dawkins said that "this campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think—and thinking is anathema to religion."

In 2010 Dawkins supported legal efforts to charge Pope Benedict XVI with crimes against humanity. Dawkins and fellow anti-religion campaigner Christopher Hitchens were believed to have explored the option of attempting to have the Pope arrested under the same legal principle that saw Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet arrested during a visit to Britain in 1998. Dawkins has given support to the idea of a "free thinking" school which he calls "Think for Yourself Academy". The school would not "indoctrinate children in atheism, any more than in religion" but it would teach children to "ask for evidence, to be sceptical, critical, open-minded".

On 15 September 2010, Dawkins, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in ''The Guardian'', stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the United Kingdom, while acknowledging his right to tour the UK as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Richard Dawkins Foundation [link]

In 2006 Dawkins founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (RDFRS), a non-profit organisation. The foundation is in developmental phase. It has been granted charitable status in the United Kingdom and the United States. RDFRS plans to finance research on the psychology of belief and religion, finance scientific education programs and materials, and publicise and support secular charitable organisations. The foundation also offers humanist, rationalist and scientific materials and information through its website.

Dawkins has said the "trend toward theocratic thinking in the United States is a danger not only for America but for the entire world." Connected to this concern, Dawkins invited Sean Faircloth to serve as opening speaker on Dawkins' 2011 US book tour. Faircloth is author of the book ''Attack of the Theocrats, How the Religious Right Harms Us All and What We Can Do About It''. The Richard Dawkins Foundation (United States branch) later hired Faircloth, who has ten years experience as a state legislator, as Director of Strategy and Policy.

Other fields [link]

In his role as professor for public understanding of science, Dawkins has been a critic of pseudoscience and alternative medicine. His 1998 book ''Unweaving the Rainbow'' takes John Keats' accusation that, by explaining the rainbow, Isaac Newton had diminished its beauty, and argues for the opposite conclusion. He suggests that deep space, the billions of years of life's evolution, and the microscopic workings of biology and heredity contain more beauty and wonder than do "myths" and "pseudoscience". Dawkins wrote a foreword to John Diamond's posthumously published ''Snake Oil'', a book devoted to debunking alternative medicine, in which he asserted that alternative medicine was harmful, if only because it distracted patients from more successful conventional treatments and gave people false hopes. Dawkins states that "there is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work."

Dawkins has expressed concern about the growth of the planet's human population and about the matter of overpopulation. In ''The Selfish Gene'', he briefly mentions population growth, giving the example of Latin America, whose population, at the time the book was written, was doubling every 40 years. He is critical of Roman Catholic attitudes to family planning and population control, stating that leaders who forbid contraception and "express a preference for 'natural' methods of population limitation" will get just such a method in the form of starvation.

As a supporter of the ''Great Ape Project'' – a movement to extend certain moral and legal rights to all great apes – Dawkins contributed the article "Gaps in the Mind" to the ''Great Ape Project'' book edited by Paola Cavalieri and Peter Singer. In this essay, he criticises contemporary society's moral attitudes as being based on a "discontinuous, speciesist imperative".

Dawkins also regularly comments in newspapers and weblogs on contemporary political questions; his opinions include opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the British nuclear deterrent and the actions of US President George W. Bush. Several such articles were included in ''A Devil's Chaplain'', an anthology of writings about science, religion and politics. He is also a supporter of the Republic campaign to replace the British monarchy with a democratically elected president. Dawkins has described himself as a Labour voter in the 1970s and voter for the Liberal Democrats since the party's creation. In 2009 he spoke at the party's conference in opposition to blasphemy laws, alternative medicine and faith schools. In the UK general election of 2010, Dawkins officially endorsed the Liberal Democrats, in support of their campaign for electoral reform and for their "refusal to pander to 'faith'."

In the 2007 TV documentary ''The Enemies of Reason'', Dawkins discusses what he sees as the dangers of abandoning critical thought and rationale based upon scientific evidence. He specifically cites astrology, spiritualism, dowsing, alternative faiths, alternative medicine and homoeopathy. He also discusses how the Internet can be used to spread religious hatred and conspiracy theories with scant attention to evidence-based reasoning.

Continuing a long-standing partnership with Channel 4, Dawkins participated in a five-part television series ''Genius of Britain'', along with fellow scientists Stephen Hawking, James Dyson, Paul Nurse, and Jim Al-Khalili. The five-episode series was broadcast in June 2010. The series focussed on major British scientific achievements throughout history.

Dawkins presented a More4 documentary entitled ''Faith School Menace?'' in which he argued for "us to reconsider the consequences of faith education, which... bamboozles parents and indoctrinates and divides children."

In 1998 Dawkins expressed his appreciation for two books, famous for their criticism of postmodernism in US universities, in departments like literary studies, anthropology and other cultural studies; the two books are ''Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science'' (by Gross and Levitt) and ''Intellectual Impostures'' (by Sokal and Bricmont), both related to the Sokal affair hoax. In the same occasion Dawkins also criticised Cambridge University for awarding philosopher Jacques Derrida an honorary doctorate.

In 2011 Dawkins joined the professoriate of the New College of the Humanities, a new private university in London established by A. C. Grayling, which is scheduled to open in September 2012.

Awards and recognition [link]

Dawkins was awarded a Doctor of Science by the University of Oxford in 1989. He holds honorary doctorates in science from the University of Huddersfield, University of Westminster, Durham University, the University of Hull, the University of Antwerp, and the University of Oslo, and honorary doctorates from the University of Aberdeen, Open University, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and the University of Valencia. He also holds honorary doctorates of letters from the University of St Andrews and the Australian National University (HonLittD, 1996), and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997 and the Royal Society in 2001. He is one of the patrons of the Oxford University Scientific Society.

In 1987 Dawkins received a Royal Society of Literature award and a ''Los Angeles Times'' Literary Prize for his book, ''The Blind Watchmaker''. In the same year, he received a ''Sci. Tech'' Prize for Best Television Documentary Science Programme of the Year, for the BBC ''Horizon'' episode ''The Blind Watchmaker''.

His other awards have included the Zoological Society of London Silver Medal (1989), Finlay innovation award (1990), the Michael Faraday Award (1990), the Nakayama Prize (1994), the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year Award (1996), the fifth International Cosmos Prize (1997), the Kistler Prize (2001), the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic (2001), the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (2002) and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest (2009).

Dawkins topped ''Prospect'' magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, as decided by the readers, receiving twice as many votes as the runner-up. He has been short-listed as a candidate in their 2008 follow-up poll. In 2005 the Hamburg-based Alfred Toepfer Foundation awarded him its Shakespeare Prize in recognition of his "concise and accessible presentation of scientific knowledge". He won the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science for 2006 and the Galaxy British Book Awards Author of the Year Award for 2007. In the same year, he was listed by ''Time'' magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007, and he was ranked 20th in ''The Daily Telegraph'''s 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses. He was awarded the Deschner Award, named after German anti-clerical author Karlheinz Deschner.

Since 2003, the Atheist Alliance International has awarded a prize during its annual conference, honouring an outstanding atheist whose work has done most to raise public awareness of atheism during that year. It is known as the Richard Dawkins Award, in honour of Dawkins' own work.

In February 2010 he was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.

Media [link]

Selected publications [link]

Documentary films [link]

''Nice Guys Finish First'' (1986)

''The Blind Watchmaker'' (1987)

''Growing Up in the Universe'' (1991)

''Break the Science Barrier'' (1996)

''The Root of All Evil?'' (2006)

''The Enemies of Reason'' (2007)

''The Genius of Charles Darwin'' (2008)

''Faith School Menace?'' (2010)

Other appearances [link]

''Doctor Who'': "The Stolen Earth" (2008) – as himself

''Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed'' (2008) – as himself

''The Purpose of Purpose'' (2009) – Lecture tour among American universities

''Beautiful Minds'' (April 2012) – BBC4 documentary

Notes[link]

b. The debate ended with the motion "That the doctrine of creation is more valid than the theory of evolution" being defeated by 198 votes to 115.

References [link]

External links [link]

General

Official website

The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science

Video

National Geographic Interviews – A series of video interviews with National Geographic Channel with Richard Dawkins on Darwin, Evolution and God.

Video interview with Riz Khan for Al Jazeera English

Video interview at Big Think

Selected writings

Viruses of the Mind (1993) – Religion as a mental virus.

The Real Romance in the Stars (1995) – A critical view of astrology.

The Emptiness of Theology at RDFRS.(1998) – A critical view of theology.

Snake Oil and Holy Water (1999) – suggests that there is no convergence occurring between science and theism.

What Use is Religion? (2004) – suggests that religion may have no survival value other than to itself.

Race and Creation (2004) – On race, its usage and a theory of how it evolved.

The giant tortoise's tale, The turtle's tale and The lava lizard's tale (2005) – A series of three articles written after a visit to the Galápagos Islands.

Dawkins' ''Huffington Post'' articles

Audio

2011 Interview on io9's Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast

Richard Dawkins on RadioLIVE's Weekend Variety Wireless – Richard Dawkins appears live on New Zealand's Radio Live, taking calls from the audience.

Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century biologists Category:21st-century biologists Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Category:Atheism activists Category:British atheists Category:British republicans Category:Critics of religions Category:English atheists Category:English biologists Category:English humanists Category:English sceptics Category:English science writers Category:Ethologists Category:Evolutionary biologists Category:Fellows of New College, Oxford Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:Gifford Lecturers Category:New College of the Humanities Category:People educated at Oundle School Category:People from Nairobi Category:Presenters of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures Category:Recipients of the Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic Category:Statutory Professors of the University of Oxford Category:University of California, Berkeley faculty

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name	Graham Chapman
birth name	Graham Arthur Chapman
birth date	January 08, 1941
birth place	Leicester, Leicestershire, England, UK
death date	October 04, 1989
death place	Maidstone, Kent, England, UK
occupation	Comedian, physician, writer, actor
other names	Gray Chapman
Alma mater	Cambridge University
partner	David Sherlock (1966–1989)
notable works	Monty Python
years active	1960–1989 }}

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

Early life and education[link]

Chapman was born at the Stoneygate Nursing Home, Stoneygate, Leicester. He was educated at Melton Mowbray Grammar School and studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Medical College and later at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was also an avid fan of radio comedy from an early age, becoming especially drawn to that of ''The Goon Show''. In the introduction to Chapman's (2005/2006) posthumous anthology, Jim Yoakum notes that "the radio shows didn't necessarily make him laugh. Only a select few got chuckles from young Chapman including Frankie Howerd, the team of Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warriss, ''It's That Man Again'', ''Educating Archie'', ''Take It From Here'' and ''Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh''. 'I especially liked Robert Moreton, although no one else seemed to like him very much. He would do things like tell jokes the wrong way around and switch punch lines. He was obviously a very good comedian and was ahead of his time. The appearance of incompetence was wonderful. He was one of my heroes.' But the show that truly astounded Graham, and was a major influence on his comedy was ''The Goon Show''" (p.xvii). Chapman states "from about the age of seven or eight I used to be an avid listener of a radio programme called ''The Goon Show''. In fact, at that stage I wanted to ''be'' a Goon" (p. 23).

Career[link]

Before ''Python''[link]

John Cleese and Chapman wrote professionally for the BBC during the 1960s, primarily 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 then joined Feldman in the television comedy series ''At Last the 1948 Show''. Here Chapman displayed a gift for deadpan comedy (particularly evident in the sketch "The Minister Who Falls to Pieces") and for imitating various British dialects. Chapman, and on occasion 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[link]

In 1969 Chapman and Cleese joined Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and American artist and animator Terry Gilliam for the BBC television comedy series ''Monty Python's Flying Circus''. He most often played characters with personalities close to his own: outwardly calm and authoritative figures barely concealing a manic unpredictability.

In David Morgan's 1999 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 Pythons have said that his biggest contribution in the writing room was an intuition as to what was funny. John 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.

Chapman played the lead roles in the troupe's only two narrative feature films: ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' and ''Monty Python's Life of Brian''. Cleese complimented his writing partner by saying that he was "very possibly the best actor of all of us".

Final years[link]

In the late 1970s, Chapman moved to Los Angeles, where he guest-starred on many U.S. television shows, including ''Hollywood Squares'', ''Still Crazy Like a Fox'', and the NBC sketch series ''The Big Show''.

Upon returning to England he 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 the pre-Python Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle. The film was only moderately successful.

His 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 '70s, by 1982 Chapman was finally able to secure funding for his much cherished pirate project ''Yellowbeard''. 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, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Spike Milligan and Cheech & Chong. The film marks the last appearance of Feldman who suffered a fatal heart attack during shooting. The film 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." Eric Idle also later dismissed the film although remembered his participation fondly.

After reuniting with the Pythons in 1983 for ''Monty Python's The Meaning of Life'', Chapman began a lengthy series of U.S. college tours where he would tell the audience anecdotes about Monty Python, the Dangerous Sports Club, Keith Moon and other subjects. In 1988, he appeared in the Iron Maiden video, ''Can I Play with Madness''. His last project was to have been a TV series called ''Jake's Journey''. Although the pilot episode was made, there were difficulties selling the project. Chapman was also to have played a guest role as a television presenter in the ''Red Dwarf'' episode "Timeslides", but died before filming was to have started.

In the years since Chapman's death, despite the existence of the "Graham Chapman Archive", only a few of his projects have been released. One of these projects is a play entitled ''O Happy Day'', brought to life in 2000 by Dad's Garage Theatre Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Cleese and Palin assisted the theatre company in adapting the play.

Filmography[link]

{|class="wikitable" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! style="background:#BOC4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#BOC4DE;" | Film ! style="background:#BOC4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#BOC4DE;" | Notes |- |rowspan="1"| 1965 | ''Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines'' | Blonde Man | Uncredited |- |rowspan="1"| 1969 | ''The Magic Christian'' | Oxford Crew | UncreditedAlso Writer |- |rowspan="2"| 1970 | ''Doctor in Trouble'' | Roddy | |- | ''The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer'' | Fromage | Also Writer |- |rowspan="2"| 1971 | ''And Now for Something Completely Different'' | Various Roles | Also Writer |- | ''The Statue'' | News Reader | |- |rowspan="1"| 1974 | ''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'' | Various Roles | Also Writer |- |rowspan="1"| 1978 | ''The Odd Job'' | Arthur Harris | Also Writer/Producer |- |rowspan="1"| 1979 | ''Monty Python's Life of Brian'' | Various Roles | Also Writer |- |rowspan="1"| 1982 | ''Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl'' | Various Roles | Also Writer |- |rowspan="3"| 1983 | ''Monty Python's The Meaning of Life'' | Various Roles | Also Writer |- | ''The Crimson Permanent Assurance'' | Clerk | Short FilmUncredited |- | ''Yellowbeard'' | Captain Yellowbeard | Also Writer |- |rowspan="1"| 1988 | ''Jake's Journey'' | Sir George/Queen | TV FilmAlso Writer |- |rowspan="1"| 1989 | ''Stage Fright'' | Smart Alec | Uncredited |}

Personal life[link]

Chapman was a tall (6'2"/1.88 m), craggy pipe-smoker who enjoyed mountaineering and playing rugby.

Chapman was an alcoholic from his time in medical school. His fellow Pythons noted he felt he needed a drink or two to "face the world" and at times would forget in the afternoon material that had been written the same day. His drinking also affected his performance on the TV recording set as well as on the set of ''Holy Grail'', where he suffered from withdrawal symptoms including delirium tremens. He stopped drinking on Boxing Day 1977, having just irritated the other Pythons with an outspoken (and drunken) interview with the ''New Musical Express''. Before going sober, Chapman jokingly referred to himself as the British actress Betty Marsden, possibly because of Marsden's oft-quoted desire to die with a glass of gin in her hand. John Cleese used Marsden's name in his eulogy at Chapman's memorial service.

Chapman kept his sexuality a secret until the 1970s, although he did allude to it in some Monty Python sketches. He publicly came out as homosexual on a chat show hosted by British jazz musician George Melly, becoming one of the first celebrities to do so. Several days later, he came out to a group of friends at a party held at his home in Belsize Park, where he officially introduced them to his boyfriend, David Sherlock, whom he had met in Ibiza in 1966. Chapman later told a story in his college tour that when he went public, a member of the television audience wrote to the Pythons to complain that she had heard a member of the team was gay, adding that the Bible said any man who lies with a man should be taken out and stoned. With fellow Pythons already aware of his sexual orientation, Eric Idle replied, "We've found out who it was and we've had him shot." In his book ''Graham Crackers'', Chapman said that this took place just before John Cleese left the show, and he wondered what the woman thought about his disappearance after getting Idle's response.

Chapman was a vocal spokesman for LGBT rights, and in 1972 he lent his support to the fledgling newspaper ''Gay News'', which publicly acknowledged his financial and editorial support by listing him as one of its "special friends". In 1971, Chapman and Sherlock adopted John Tomiczek as their son. Chapman met Tomiczek when the teenager was a runaway from Liverpool. After discussions with Tomiczek's father, it was agreed that Chapman would become Tomiczek's legal guardian, and Tomiczek later became Chapman's business manager. Tomiczek died of a heart attack in 1992.

Among Chapman's closest friends were Keith Moon of The Who, singer Harry Nilsson, Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, and The Beatles' Ringo Starr.

Death and funeral[link]

Chapman died on 4 October 1989 after suffering from tonsil cancer, which he had been diagnosed with in November 1988, and secondary spinal cancer. He had several chemotherapy treatments and tumour removal surgeries within the final months of his life, and at one point he used a wheelchair. By September 1989 his cancer was declared terminal. He produced scenes for the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of ''Flying Circus'' that month, the last time he would appear on television, but he became ill again on 1 October. Those present at the time of Chapman's death in a Maidstone hospital included his brother, sister-in-law, partner David Sherlock, and his former ''Python'' fellows John Cleese and Michael Palin, who had to be led out of the room to deal with their grief. Terry Jones and Peter Cook had visited earlier that day. Chapman's death occurred on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of ''Flying Circus'', and Jones called it "the worst case of party-pooping in all history".

The five surviving Python members decided to stay away from Chapman's private funeral, to prevent its becoming a media circus and to give his family some privacy. They sent a wreath in the shape of the famous Python foot with the message "To Graham from the other Pythons. Stop us if we're getting too silly." They held a private memorial service in St Bartholomew's Hospital in London on the evening of 6 December 1989, with a chorus of the Chinese version of the hymn "Jerusalem" ("… Bling me my speal, oh crowds unford, bling me my chaliot of file…"). Cleese delivered his eulogy to Chapman, which began as follows:

Cleese continued after a break from laughter in the audience, claiming that Chapman had whispered in his ear the night before while he was writing the speech, saying:

Palin then spoke, saying that he liked to think that Chapman was there with them all that day—"or rather, he will be in about 25 minutes," a reference to Chapman's habitual lateness when they were all working together. Idle, choking back tears, stated that Chapman had thought that Palin talked too much and had died rather than listen to him any more. He also led other surviving ''Python'' members along with Chapman's family and close friends in a rendition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from the film ''Life of Brian''. Not to be outdone by Cleese, Idle was heard saying during the song's close: "I'd just like to be the last person at this meeting to say 'fuck'. Thank you very much. God bless you, Graham." On 31 December 1999, Chapman's ashes were rumoured to have been "blasted into the skies in a rocket". In reality, however, Sherlock scattered Chapman's ashes on Snowdon, North Wales, on 18 June 2005.

Legacy[link]

After Chapman's death, speculation of a Python revival inevitably faded. Idle stated: "We would only do a reunion if Chapman came back from the dead. So we're negotiating with his agent." Subsequent gatherings of the Pythons have included an urn said to contain Chapman's ashes. At the 1998 Aspen Comedy Arts festival, the urn was "accidentally" knocked over by Terry Gilliam, spilling the "ashes" on-stage. The apparently cremated remains were then removed with a dust-buster. Asteroid 9617 Grahamchapman, named in Chapman's honour, is one of six asteroids named after members of the Monty Python comedy troupe.

In 1997, Sherlock allowed Jim Yoakum to start the ''Graham Chapman Archives''. Later that year, the novel ''Graham Crackers: Fuzzy Memories, Silly Bits, and Outright Lies'' was released. It is a semi-sequel to ''A Liar's Autobiography'', with Chapman works compiled by Yoakum. ''Ojril: The Completely Incomplete Graham Chapman'', a collection of previously unpublished material, was released in 1999. It contains scripts Chapman wrote with Douglas Adams and others, such as "Our show for Ringo Starr, a.k.a. Goodnight Vienna". In 2005 ''Calcium Made Interesting: Sketches, Letters, Essays & Gondolas'' was published. At one time, the script for "Out of the Trees", written by Chapman and Adams in 1975 (and later extensively rewritten by Chapman with Bernard McKenna), was online. Jim Yoakum had it removed, to the disappointment of co-writer Adams, who had made no objections to it being there.

Recordings of Graham Chapman's college tours in the 1980s have been released over the years. The CD ''A Liar Live'' was delayed several times, but was released as ''A Six Pack of Lies'' in 1997. Other college tours also came out on CD, such as ''Spot the Loony'' in 2001. A DVD of the tours (''Looks Like a Brown Trouser Job'') was released in 2005. The single episodes for "Out of the Trees", which was wiped but later recovered on an early home video system, and "Jake's Journey" still have not been released. In 2004, there was talk of a movie about Chapman's life, to be called ''Gin and Tonic'', by Hippofilms in cooperation with Jim Yoakum. Auditions were held in March 2004 in California, but the project has been officially abandoned. Its website is no longer online and the Internet Movie Database page has been deleted; the Graham Chapman Archive's website has disappeared as well.

In June 2011 it was announced that most of the surviving members of the Monty Python ensemble will perform in a 3-D animated version of Chapman's memoir ''A Liar’s Autobiography: Volume VI''. The voices of John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones will be spliced into commentary recorded by Chapman reading from his memoir and taped shortly before his death. The film is expected to be released in 2012 with a running time of approximately 85 minutes.

Notes and references[link]

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

Graham Chapman at PythOnline Pythons Page

Graham Chapman at the BBC Comedy Guide

Graham Chapman at the Comedy Zone

Graham Chapman at Gay Greats

Category:1941 births Category:1989 deaths Category:Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge Category:Alumni of the Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital Category:English male comedians Category:Cancer deaths in England Category:Deaths from spinal cancer Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer Category:English comedians Category:English comedy writers Category:English film actors Category:20th-century English medical doctors Category:English television actors Category:English television writers Category:Gay actors Category:Gay writers Category:LGBT people from England Category:LGBT rights activists from England Category:Monty Python members Category:People from Wigston Magna Category:People from Melton Mowbray Category:People from Leicester Category:People self-identifying as alcoholics Category:Gay comedians Category:Gay broadcasters

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name	Stephen Fry
birth name	Stephen John Fry
birth date	August 24, 1957
birth place	Hampstead, London, England
occupation	Actor, comedian, author, journalist, broadcaster, film director
nationality	British
years active	1981–present
partner	Daniel Cohen (1995–2010)
alma mater	Queens' College, Cambridge
parents	Alan John Fry Marianne Eve Fry (née Newman)
religion	None (atheist)
title	President of Mind (2011-present) Patron of the Lip Theatre Company Patron of the Norwich Playhouse theatre Vice President of the Noël Coward Society Honorary fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge Honorary fellow of Cardiff University Honorary president of the Cambridge University Quiz Society Rector of the University of Dundee (1992-1998)
influences	Oscar Wilde, P. G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Douglas Adams, Rowan Atkinson
website
signature	Stephen Fry signature.svg

Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter, film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club.

After a troubled childhood and adolescence, during which he was expelled from a number of schools and eventually spent three months in prison for credit card fraud, he was able to secure a place at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he studied English Literature.

He first came to public attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in ''A Bit of Fry & Laurie'', and took the role of Jeeves (with Laurie playing Wooster) in ''Jeeves and Wooster''.

As an actor, Fry played the lead in the film ''Wilde'', was Melchett in the BBC television series ''Blackadder'', starred as the title character Peter Kingdom in the ITV series ''Kingdom'', has a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series ''Bones'' and appeared as rogue TV host Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller ''V For Vendetta''. He has also written and presented several documentary series including the 2008 television series ''Stephen Fry in America'', which saw him travelling across all 50 U.S. states. Since 2003 he has been the host of the quiz show ''QI''.

As well as his work in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and two volumes of autobiography, ''Moab Is My Washpot'' and ''The Fry Chronicles''. He also appears frequently on BBC Radio 4, starring in the comedy series ''Absolute Power'', being a frequent guest on panel games such as ''Just a Minute'', and acting as chairman for ''I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue'', where he was one of a trio of hosts who succeeded the late Humphrey Lyttelton. Fry is also known in the UK for his audiobook recordings, particularly as reader for all seven ''Harry Potter'' novels.

Early life[link]

Fry was born in Hampstead, London, on 24 August 1957, the son of Marianne Eve Fry (née Newman) and Alan John Fry, who was an English physicist and inventor. His maternal grandparents, Martin and Rosa Neumann, were Hungarian Jewish immigrants from Šurany, which is now in Slovakia, and his mother's aunt and cousins died in Auschwitz. Fry grew up in the village of Booton near Reepham, Norfolk, having moved from Chesham, Buckinghamshire at an early age.

Fry briefly attended Cawston Primary School, Cawston, Norfolk before going on to Stouts Hill Preparatory School at the age of seven, and then to Uppingham School, Rutland, where he joined Fircroft house and was described as a "near-asthmatic genius". He was expelled from Uppingham when he was 15, and subsequently from the Paston School.

At 17, after leaving Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen from a family friend, was arrested in Swindon, and as a result spent three months in Pucklechurch Prison on remand.

Following his release he resumed his education at City College Norwich, promising administrators that he would study rigorously to sit the Cambridge entrance exams. He scored well enough to gain a scholarship to Queens' College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, Fry joined the Cambridge Footlights, appeared on ''University Challenge'', and gained a degree in English literature. It was at the Footlights that Fry met his future comedy collaborator Hugh Laurie.

Career[link]

Television[link]

Comedy[link]

Fry's career in television began with the 1982 broadcasting of ''The Cellar Tapes'', the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue which was written by Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. The revue caught the attention of Granada Television, who, keen to replicate the success of the BBC's ''Not the Nine O'Clock News'', hired Fry, Laurie and Thompson to star alongside Ben Elton in ''There's Nothing to Worry About!.'' A second series, re-titled ''Alfresco'', was broadcast in 1983 and a third in 1984; it established Fry and Laurie's reputation as a comedy double act. In 1983, the BBC offered them their own show, which became ''The Crystal Cube'', a mixture of science fiction and mockumentary that was axed after the first episode. Undeterred, Fry and Laurie appeared in an episode of ''The Young Ones'' in 1984, and Fry in Ben Elton's 1985 series, ''Happy Families''. In 1986 and 1987 Fry and Laurie also performed sketches on the LWT/Channel 4 show ''Saturday Live''.

Forgiving Fry and Laurie for ''The Crystal Cube'', the BBC commissioned a sketch show in 1986 that was to become ''A Bit of Fry & Laurie''. The programme ran for 26 episodes spanning four series between 1986 and 1995, and was very successful. During this time Fry starred in ''Blackadder II'' as Lord Melchett, made a guest appearance in ''Blackadder the Third'' as the Duke of Wellington, then returned to a starring role in ''Blackadder Goes Forth'' as General Melchett. In the 1988 television special Blackadder's Christmas Carol he played the roles of Lord Melchett and Lord Frondo.

Between 1990 and 1993, Fry starred as Jeeves (alongside Hugh Laurie's Bertie Wooster) in ''Jeeves and Wooster'', 23 hour-long adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse's novels and short stories.

Towards the end of 2003, Fry starred alongside John Bird in the television adaptation of ''Absolute Power'', previously a radio series on BBC Radio 4.

In 2010 Fry took part in a Christmas series of Short Films called 'Little Crackers'. Fry's short is based on a story from his childhood at school. He appeared as the Christian God in 2011's ''Holy Flying Circus''.

Drama[link]

Fry has appeared in a number of BBC adaptations of plays and books, including a 1992 adaptation of the Simon Gray play ''The Common Pursuit'' (Fry had previously appeared in the West End stage production); a 1998 Malcolm Bradbury adaptation of the Mark Tavener novel, ''In the Red'', with Fry taking the part of the Controller of BBC Radio 2; and in 2000 Fry took the role of Professor Bellgrove in the BBC serial ''Gormenghast'' which were adapted from the first two novels of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series. In 2011, Fry portrayed Professor Mildeye in the BBC adaption of Mary Norton's 1952 novel The Borrowers.

Fry narrates the English language version of the Spanish children's animated series ''Pocoyo''.

From 2007 to 2009, Fry played the lead role in (and was executive producer for) the legal drama ''Kingdom'', which ran for three series on ITV1. He has also taken up a recurring guest role as psychiatrist Dr. Gordon Wyatt in the popular American drama ''Bones''.

In 2010, having learned some Irish for the role, he filmed a cameo role in ''Ros na Rún'', an Irish language soap opera broadcast in Ireland, Scotland and the United States.

Documentaries and other factual programmes[link]

Fry made his first foray into documentary-making with the Emmy Award-winning ''The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive'' in 2006; also in 2006, he appeared in the genealogy series ''Who Do You Think You Are?'', tracing his maternal family tree to investigate his Jewish ancestry. Fry narrated ''The Story of Light Entertainment'', which was shown from July–September 2006. In 2007 he presented a documentary on the subject of HIV and AIDS, ''HIV and Me''.

On 7 May 2008, Fry gave a speech as part of a series of BBC lectures on the future of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, which he later recorded for a podcast.

His six-part travel series ''Stephen Fry in America'' began on BBC One in October 2008 and saw him travel to each of the 50 U.S. states; in the same year he narrated the nature documentaries ''Spectacled Bears: Shadow of the Forest'' for the BBC ''Natural World'' series.

In the 2009 television series ''Last Chance to See'', Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine sought out endangered species, some of which had been featured in Douglas Adams' and Carwardine's 1990 book and radio series of the same name Also in 2009, Fry briefly hosted CBBC series ''Horrible Histories'', an educational TV show for school children.

In August 2011 ''Stephen Fry's 100 Greatest Gadgets'' was shown on Channel 4 as one of the ''100 Greatest'' strand. His choice for the greatest gadget was the lighter which he described as "fire with a flick of the fingers".

In September 2011 ''Fry's Planet Word'', a five-part documentary about language, aired on BBC HD and BBC Two.

''QI''[link]

In 2003, Fry began hosting the TV game show ''QI'' (Quite Interesting), a British comedy panel game television quiz show. ''QI'' was created and co-produced by John Lloyd, and features permanent panellist Alan Davies. ''QI'' has the highest viewing figures for any show on BBC Four and UKTV G2 (now Dave). In 2006, Fry won the Rose d'Or award for "Best Game Show Host" for his work on the series.

Film[link]

Having made his film debut in the 1985 film ''The Good Father'', Fry had a brief appearance in ''A Fish Called Wanda'' (in which he is knocked out by Kevin Kline, who is posing as an airport security man) and then appeared in the lead role for Kenneth Branagh's ''Peter's Friends'' in 1992. In the 1994 romantic comedy film ''I.Q.'', he played the role of James Moreland. Portraying Oscar Wilde (of whom he had been a fan since the age of 13) in the 1997 film ''Wilde'', he fulfilled to critical acclaim a role that he has said he was "born to play". It also earned him a nomination for Best Actor - Drama in the 1998 Golden Globe Award. A year later, Fry starred in David Yates' small independent film ''The Tichborne Claimant'', and in 2001 he played the detective in Robert Altman's period costume drama, ''Gosford Park''. In the same year he also appeared in the Dutch film ''The Discovery of Heaven'', directed by Jeroen Krabbé and based on the novel by Harry Mulisch.

In 2003, Fry made his directorial debut with ''Bright Young Things'', adapted by himself from Evelyn Waugh's ''Vile Bodies''. In 2001, he began hosting the BAFTA Film Awards, a role from which he stepped down in 2006. Later that same year, he wrote the English libretto and dialogue for Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of ''The Magic Flute''.

Fry continues to make regular film appearances, notably in treatments of literary cult classics. He portrayed Maurice Woodruff in ''The Life and Death of Peter Sellers'', served as narrator in the 2005 film version of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', and in 2005 he appeared in both ''A Cock and Bull Story'', based on ''Tristram Shandy'', and as a non-conforming TV Presenter who challenges the fascist state in ''V for Vendetta''. In 2006, he played the role of gadget-master Smithers in ''Stormbreaker'', and in 2007 he appeared as himself hosting a quiz in ''St Trinian's''. In 2007, Fry wrote a script for a remake of ''The Dam Busters'' for director Peter Jackson.

Fry was offered a role in ''Valkyrie'' but was unable to participate. Fry starred in the Tim Burton version of ''Alice in Wonderland'', as the voice of The Cheshire Cat. He played Mycroft Holmes in the sequel to ''Sherlock Holmes'' directed by Guy Ritchie. In 2010, Fry provided the voice of Socrates the Lion in the environmental animated film ''Animals United''. He will portray the Master of Lake-town in the 2012 film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Hobbit.''

Feature filmography[link]

1985: ''The Good Father'' – Creighton

1988: ''A Fish Called Wanda'' – Hutchison

1992: ''Peter's Friends'' – Peter

1994: ''I.Q.'' – James Moreland

1997: ''Wilde'' – Oscar Wilde

1998: ''The Tichborne Claimant'' – Hawkins

1999: ''Whatever Happened to Harold Smith?''- Dr.Peter Robinson

2001: ''Gosford Park'' – Inspector Thompson

2001: ''The Discovery of Heaven'' – Onno

2002: ''Thunderpants'' – Sir Antony Silk (Judge)

2003: ''Bright Young Things'' – Director

2004: ''The Life and Death of Peter Sellers'' – Maurice Woodruff

2005: ''V for Vendetta'' – Deitrich

2005: ''The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy'' – The Narrator (Voice)

2006: ''The Magic Flute'' – Writer

2006: ''Stormbreaker'' – Smithers

2007: ''St. Trinian's'' – Himself

2007: ''Eichmann'' – Minister Tormer

2009: ''House of Boys'' - Dr Marsh

2010: ''Alice in Wonderland'' – Cheshire Cat (Voice)

2010: ''Animals United'' – Socrates the Lion (Voice)

2011: ''Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows'' – Mycroft Holmes

2012: ''The Hobbit: There and Back Again'' – Master of Lake-town

Radio[link]

Fry came to the attention of radio listeners with the 1986 creation of his alter-ego, Donald Trefusis, whose "wireless essays" were broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 programme ''Loose Ends''. In the 1980s he starred as David Lander in four series of the BBC Radio 4 show ''Delve Special'', written by Tony Sarchet, which became the six part Channel 4 series ''This is David Lander'' in 1988. In 1988, Fry wrote and presented a six-part comedy series entitled ''Saturday Night Fry''; frequent radio appearances have ensued (notably on panel games ''Just a Minute'' and ''I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue''). In 2000, he began starring as Charles Prentiss in the Radio 4 comedy ''Absolute Power'', reprising the role for three further series on radio and two on television. In 2002, Fry voiced Winnie-the-Pooh and was one of the narrators of A.A. Milne's ''Winnie-the-Pooh'' and ''The House at Pooh Corner''. He presented a 20-part, two-hour series, ''The Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music'', a "witty guide" to the genre over the past 1,000 years, on Classic FM.

In 2007, he hosted ''Current Puns'', an exploration of wordplay, and ''Radio 4: This Is Your Life'', to celebrate the radio station's 40th anniversary. He also interviewed Tony Blair as part of a series of podcasts released by 10 Downing Street.

In February 2008, Fry began presenting podcasts entitled ''Stephen Fry's Podgrams'', in which he recounts his life and recent experiences. In July 2008, he appeared as himself in ''I Love Stephen Fry'', an ''Afternoon Play'' for Radio 4 written by former ''Fry and Laurie'' script editor Jon Canter.

Since August 2008 he has presented ''Fry's English Delight'', a series on BBC Radio 4 about the English language. As of 2011, it has been running for four series and 15 episodes.

In the summer 2009 series of ''I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue'', Fry was one of a trio of hosts replacing Humphrey Lyttelton (the others being Jack Dee and Rob Brydon).

In 2012 he appeared as a guest panellist in the BBC Radio 4 comedy panel show ''Wordaholics''.

Theatre[link]

Fry wrote the play ''Latin! or Tobacco and Boys'' for the 1980 Edinburgh Festival, where it won the Fringe First prize. It had a revival in 2009 at London's Cock Tavern Theatre, directed by Adam Spreadbury-Maher. ''The Cellar Tapes'', the Footlights Revue of 1981, won the Perrier Comedy Award. In 1984, Fry adapted the hugely successful 1930s musical ''Me and My Girl'' for the West End, where it ran for eight years. He was also cast in a lead role in Simon Gray's 1995 play, ''Cell Mates'', which he left three days into the West End run, pleading stage fright. He later recalled the incident as a hypomanic episode in his documentary about bipolar disorder, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. In 2007, Fry wrote a Christmas pantomime, ''Cinderella'', which ran at London's Old Vic Theatre.

Fry is a long-standing fan of the anarchic 1960s British musical comedy group, the ''Bonzo Dog Band'' and, particularly, of its eccentric front man, the late Vivian Stanshall. Fry helped to fund an ill-fated 1988 London re-staging of Stanshall's acclaimed ''Stinkfoot, a Comic Opera'', written by Vivian and Ki Longfellow-Stanshall for the Bristol-based Old Profanity Showboat. Fry performed several of Stanshall's numbers as part of the Bonzos' 2006 reunion concert at the London Astoria. He also appears as a shiny New Millennium Bonzo on their post-reunion album, ''Pour l'Amour des Chiens'', on which he recites a recipe for "Salmon Proust", plays a butler in "Hawkeye the Gnu", and voices ads for the fictitious "Fiasco" stores.

Following three one-man shows in Australia, Fry announced a "sort of stand-up" performance at The Royal Albert Hall in London for September 2010.

Audio books[link]

Stephen Fry has been the reader for the British versions of all of J.K.Rowling's ''Harry Potter'' series of audio books. He discussed this project in an interview with J.K. Rowling in 2005. Fry has also been the reader for Douglas Adams's ''The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy'' film tie-in edition. He has also made recordings of his own books, such as ''The Stars' Tennis Balls'' and ''Moab Is My Washpot''; and works by Roald Dahl, Michael Bond, A. A. Milne, and Anthony Buckeridge.

Video games[link]

Fry's distinctive voice has been featured in a number of video games, including an appearance as Reaver, a primary antagonist in Lionhead Studios games ''Fable II'' and ''Fable III'', and as the narrator in ''LittleBigPlanet'' and its sequel on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. He also served as narrator on the first four ''Harry Potter'' games (''Philosopher's Stone'', ''Chamber of Secrets'', ''Prisoner of Azkaban'' and the ''Goblet of Fire'').

Advertisements[link]

Fry has lent himself and his voice to many advertisements, starting with an appearance as "Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar" in a 1982 advert for Whitbread Best Bitter. Fry has said in his memoirs that after receiving his payment for this work – £25,000 – he has never subsequently experienced "what one could call serious money troubles". He has since appeared in adverts for products and companies such as Marks and Spencer, Twinings, Kenco, Vauxhall, Honda, Direct Line, Calpol, Heineken, Alliance & Leicester, After Eights, Trebor, Panama cigars and Orange Mobile.

Literature[link]

Since the publication of his first novel, ''The Liar'' (1991), Fry has written three further novels, several non-fiction works and two volumes of autobiography. ''Making History'' (1997) is partly set in an alternative universe where Adolf Hitler's father is made infertile and his replacement proves a rather more effective Führer. The book won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. ''The Hippopotamus'' (1994) is about Edward (Ted/Tedward) Wallace and his stay at his old friend Lord Logan's country manor in Norfolk. ''The Stars' Tennis Balls'' (2000) is a modern retelling of ''The Count of Monte Cristo''. Fry's book, ''The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within'', is a guide to writing poetry.

When writing a book review for ''Tatler'', Fry wrote under a ''nom de plume'', Williver Hendry, editor of ''A Most Peculiar Friendship: The Correspondence of Lord Alfred Douglas and Jack Dempsey'', a field close to Fry's heart as an Oscar Wilde enthusiast. Once a columnist in ''The Listener'' and ''The Daily Telegraph'', he now writes a weekly technology column in the Saturday edition of ''The Guardian''. His blog attracted more than 300,000 visitors in its first two weeks.

In May 2009, Fry unveiled ''The Dongle of Donald Trefusis'', an audiobook series following Donald Trefusis (a fictional character from Fry's novel ''The Liar'' and from the BBC Radio 4 series ''Loose Ends''), set over 12 episodes. After its release, it reached No. 1 on the UK Album Chart list.

Fry's use of the word "luvvie" in ''The Guardian'' on 2 April 1988 is given by the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' as the earliest recorded use of the word.

Football[link]

In August 2010, Fry joined the Board of Directors at Norwich City Football Club. A lifelong fan of "the Canaries" and a regular visitor to Carrow Road, he said on being appointed "Truly this is one of the most exciting days of my life and I am as proud and pleased as I could be."

Twitter[link]

In October 2008, Fry began posting to the social networking site Twitter, which he regularly updates. On 16 May 2009, he celebrated the 500,000-follower mark: "Bless my soul 500k followers. And I love you all. Well, all except that silly one. And that's not you."

Fry wields a considerable amount of influence through his use of Twitter. He is frequently asked to promote various charities and causes, often inadvertently causing their websites to crash because of the volume of traffic generated by his large number of followers; as Fry notes on his website: "Four thousand hits a second all diving down the pipeline at the same time for minutes on end." Fry uses his influence to recommend underexposed musicians and authors (who often see large increases in web hits and sales) and to raise awareness of contemporary issues in the world of media and politics, notably the dropping of an injunction against ''The Guardian'' and the lambasting of ''Daily Mail'' columnist Jan Moir over her article on the death of Boyzone member Stephen Gately.

In October 2009 Fry again sparked debate amongst users when he announced his intention to leave the social networking site after criticism from another user on Twitter. He retracted the intention the next day. In October 2010, Fry left Twitter for a few days following press criticism of a quote taken from an interview he had given, with a farewell message of "Bye bye". After returning, Fry explained that he had left Twitter to "avoid being sympathised with or told about an article I would otherwise never have got wind of".

In November 2009 Fry's Twitter account reached one million followers. He commemorated the million followers milestone with a humorous video blog in which a 'Step Hen Fry' clone speaks from the year 2034 where MySpace, Facebook and Twitter have combined to form 'Twit on MyFace'.

In November 2010 Fry welcomed his two millionth follower with a blog entry detailing his opinions and experiences of Twitter.

On 11 March 2012, Fry noted his passing of the four million follower mark with a tweet: "Lordy I've breasted the 4 million followers tape. Love you all. Yes even YOU. But let's dedicate today to Douglas Adams's diamond jubilee"

Acclaim[link]

In 1995, Fry was presented with an honorary doctorate from the University of Dundee, which named their main Students' Association bar after his novel ''The Liar''. Fry is a patron of its Lip Theatre Company. He also served two consecutive terms – 1992 to 1995 and 1995 to 1998 – as the student-elected Rector of the University of Dundee. Fry is considered to have been one of the most popular rectors the University has had, and was noted for his work to promote the University and his efforts to represent its students on the University Court. Such was his popularity, he was unopposed when he sought re-election to office in 1995, and by the time he completed his second term in office he had won the widespread admiration of the University's staff and students. He was awarded the AoC Gold Award in 2004, and was entered into their hall of fame. Fry was also awarded an honorary degree from Anglia Ruskin University in 2005. He was made honorary president of the Cambridge University Quiz Society and honorary fellow of his ''alma mater'' Queens' College, Cambridge. On 13 July 2010, he was made an honorary fellow of Cardiff University and on 28 January 2011 he was awarded an honorary doctorate at the University of Sussex for his work campaigning for people suffering from mental health problems, bipolar disorder and HIV.

He is a Patron of the Norwich Playhouse theatre and a Vice President of The Noël Coward Society. Fry was the last person to be named Pipe Smoker of the Year before the award was discontinued.

In December 2006 he was ranked sixth for the BBC's Top Living Icon Award, was featured on ''The Culture Show'', and was voted ''Most Intelligent Man on Television'' by readers of ''Radio Times''. The ''Independent on Sunday'' Pink List named Fry the second most influential gay person in Britain in May 2007; he had taken the twenty-third position on the list the previous year. Later the same month he was announced as the 2007 ''Mind Champion of the Year'' in recognition of the success of his documentary ''The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive'' in raising awareness of bipolar disorder. Fry was also nominated in "Best Entertainment Performance" for ''QI'' and "Best Factual Series" for ''Secret Life of the Manic Depressive'' at the 2007 British Academy Television Awards. That same year, ''Broadcast'' magazine listed Fry at number four in its "Hot 100" list of influential on-screen performers, describing him as a polymath and a "national treasure". He was also granted a lifetime achievement award at the British Comedy Awards on 5 December 2007 and the Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards on 20 January 2010.

BBC Four dedicated two nights of programming to Fry on 17 and 18 August 2007, in celebration of his 50th birthday. The first night, comprising programs featuring Fry, began with a sixty-minute documentary entitled ''Stephen Fry: 50 Not Out''. The second night was composed of programs selected by Fry, as well as a 60-minute interview with Mark Lawson and a half-hour special, ''Stephen Fry: Guilty''. The weekend programming proved such a ratings hit for BBC Four that it was repeated on BBC Two on 16 and 17 September 2007.

In 2011, he was the subject of Molly Lewis's song ''An Open Letter to Stephen Fry'', in which the singer jokingly offers herself as a surrogate mother for his child. In February 2011, Fry was awarded the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism by the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University, the Harvard Secular Society and the American Humanist Association.

Views on religion[link]

Fry has repeatedly expressed opposition to organised religion and has identified himself as an atheist and humanist, while declaring some sympathy for the ancient Greek belief in capricious gods. In his first autobiography he wrote, "I knew I couldn't believe in God, because I was fundamentally Hellenic in my outlook." He has accepted that religion can have positive effects, "Sometimes belief means credulity, sometimes an expression of faith and hope which even the most sceptical atheist such as myself cannot but find inspiring."

In 2009, ''The Guardian'' published a letter from Fry addressing his younger self, explaining how his future is soon to unfold, reflecting on the positive progression towards gay acceptance and openness around him, and yet not everywhere, while warning on how "the cruel, hypocritical and loveless hand of religion and absolutism has fallen on the world once more". Later that year, he and Christopher Hitchens participated in an "Intelligence Squared" debate in which they argued against Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop John Onaiyekan, who supported the view that the Catholic Church was a force for good. Fry and Hitchens argued that the church did more harm than good. Fry attacked the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality and denounced its wealth.

In 2010 he was made a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association, stating: "it is essential to nail one’s colours to the mast as a humanist." Later that year, Fry, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in ''The Guardian'', stating their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom being a state visit.

On 22 February 2011, Fry was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism by the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University, joining a list of previous honorees including novelist Salman Rushdie, screenwriter Joss Whedon, and Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman.

Personal life[link]

Fry struggled to keep his homosexuality secret during his teenage years at public school, and has claimed not to have engaged in sexual activity for 16 years from 1979 until 1995. When asked when he first acknowledged his sexuality, Fry quipped: "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 going up one of those.'" Fry was in a 14-year relationship with Daniel Cohen, which ended in 2010. Fry has stated that he is 90% homosexual, but has been attracted to women on occasion.

Fry has a home in London and another in Hollywood. He also has a home near King's Lynn, Norfolk. When in London, Fry drives a dark green TX4 London cab.

Fry was an active supporter of the 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 praise of the Blair/Brown government's work on social reform, Fry has been critical of the Labour Party's "Third Way" concept. Fry appeared in literature to support changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the Alternative Vote referendum in 2011.

He is on cordial terms with Prince Charles (despite a mild parody Fry performed in his role of King Charles I in the comedy programme ''Blackadder: The Cavalier Years''), through his work with the Prince's Trust. He attended the Prince of Wales' and Camilla Parker Bowles' wedding in 2005.

Fry is a friend of British comedian and actor (and ''Blackadder'' co-star) Rowan Atkinson and was best man at Atkinson's wedding to Sunetra Sastry at the Russian Tea Room in New York City. Fry was a friend of British actor John Mills.

His best friend is Hugh Laurie, whom he met while both were at Cambridge and with whom he has collaborated many times over the years. He was best man at Laurie's wedding and is godfather to all three of his children.

A fan of cricket, Fry has claimed to be related to former England cricketer C.B. Fry, and was interviewed for the ''Ashes Fever'' DVD, reporting on England's victory over Australia in the 2005 Ashes series. Regarding football, he is a supporter of Norwich City, and is a regular visitor to Carrow Road.

He has been described as "deeply dippy for all things digital", claims to have bought the third Macintosh computer sold in the UK (his friend Douglas Adams bought the first two) and jokes that he has never encountered a smartphone that he has not bought. He counts Wikipedia among his favourite websites "because I like to find out that I died, and that I'm currently in a ballet in China, and all the other very accurate and important things that Wikipedia brings us all."

Fry has a long-standing interest in Internet production, including having his own website since 1997. His current site, ''The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry'', has existed since 2002 and has attracted many visitors following his first blog in September 2007, which comprised a 6,500 word "blessay" on smartphones. In February 2008, Fry launched his private podcast series, ''Stephen Fry's Podgrams'', and a forum, including discussions on depression and activities in which Fry is involved. The website content is created by Stephen Fry and produced by Andrew Sampson. Fry is also a supporter of GNU and the Free Software Foundation. For the 25th anniversary of the GNU operating system, Fry appeared in a video explaining some of the philosophy behind GNU by likening it to the sharing found in science.

On 30 April 2008, Fry signed an open letter, published in ''The Guardian'' newspaper by some well known Jewish personalities, stating their opposition to celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. Furthermore, he is a signatory member of the British Jews for Justice for Palestinians organisation, which campaigns for Palestinian rights.

Fry was among over 100 signatories to a statement published by Sense About Science on 4 June 2009, condemning British libel laws and their use to "severely curtail the right to free speech on a matter of public interest."

Poland controversy[link]

On 6 October 2009, Fry was interviewed by Jon Snow on ''Channel 4 News'' as a signatory of a letter to British Conservative Party leader David Cameron expressing concern about the party's relationship with Poland's opposition national conservative Law and Justice party in the European Parliament. During the interview, he stated: The remark prompted a complaint from the Polish Embassy in London, an editorial in ''The Economist'' and criticism from British Jewish historian David Cesarani. Fry has since posted an apology in a six-page post on his personal blog, in which he stated:{{bquote|I offer no excuse. I seemed to imply that the Polish people had been responsible for the most infamous of all the death factories of the Third Reich. I didn't even really at the time notice the import of what I had said, so gave myself no opportunity instantly to retract the statement. It was a rubbishy, cheap and offensive remark that I have been regretting ever since.

I take this opportunity to apologise now. I said a stupid, thoughtless and fatuous thing. It detracted from and devalued my argument, such as it was, and it outraged and offended a large group of people for no very good reason. I am sorry in all directions, and all the more sorry because it is no one's fault but my own, which always makes it so much worse.}}

Health[link]

Fry has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, specifically stating he suffers from Cyclothymia, referring to it as "bipolar lite". 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. After walking out of the production, 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, which was also depicted in the documentary ''Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive''. In the programme, he interviewed other sufferers of the illness including 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 major depression, and comedienne and former mental health nurse Jo Brand. He is also involved with the mental health charity Stand to Reason.

In 2009, Fry lent his support to a campaign led by the human rights organisation Reprieve to prevent the execution of heroin trafficker Akmal Shaikh, a British citizen originally from Pakistan. Some of Shaikh's supporters have said he suffered from undiagnosed bipolar disorder. Despite calls for clemency, Shaikh was executed in the People's Republic of China for drug trafficking.

In January 2008, he broke his arm while filming ''Last Chance to See'' in Brazil. He later explained in a podcast how the accident happened: while climbing aboard a boat, he slipped between it and the dock, and, while stopping himself from falling into the water, his body weight caused his right humerus to snap. The damage was more severe than first thought: the resulting vulnerability to his radial nerve – he was at risk of losing the use of his arm – was not diagnosed until he saw a consultant in the UK.

As the host of ''QI'', Fry has stated that he is allergic to both champagne and bumble bee stings.

Appearing on ''Top Gear'' in 2009, Fry had lost a significant amount of weight, prompting host Jeremy Clarkson to ask jokingly, "Where's the rest of you?" Fry explained that he had shed a total of , attributing the weight loss to doing a lot of walking while listening to downloaded Audiobooks.

Fry is between and in height.

Business[link]

In 2008, Fry formed SamFry Ltd, with long-term collaborator Andrew Sampson, to produce and fund new material, as well as manage his official website.

Bibliography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Five Minutes With: Stephen Fry, interview with Matthew Stadlen for the BBC

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