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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's house at 89 Southwood Lane.

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 [1] 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).^[1]

Career[link]

[edit] Before Python

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."^[2] Eric Idle also later dismissed the film although remembered his participation fondly.^[3]

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]

Personal life[link]

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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.^[4]

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,^[5] and secondary spinal cancer.^[6] 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.^[7] 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."^[9] On 31 December 1999, Chapman's ashes were rumoured to have been "blasted into the skies in a rocket".^[10][11] In reality, however, Sherlock scattered Chapman's ashes on Snowdon, North Wales, on 18 June 2005.^[12]

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.^[13] 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,^[14] 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.^[15]

Notes and references[link]

Bibliography[link]

• McCabe, Bob (2005). The Life of Graham, The authorised biography of Graham Chapman. London: Orion Books. ISBN 0-7528-5773-8. 
• Chapman, Graham (October 2005). Jim Yoakum. ed. Calcium Made Interesting : Sketches, Letters, Essays & Gondolas. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. ISBN 0-283-07016-1. 
• Hewison, Robert (1983). Footlights! – A Hundred Years of Cambridge Comedy. London: Methuen London. ISBN 0-413-51150-2. 
• Wilmut, Roger (1980). From Fringe to Flying Circus – 'Celebrating a Unique Generation of Comedy 1960–1980'. Eyre Methuen. ISBN 0-413-46950-6. 
• Chapman, Graham (1980). A Liar's Autobiography (Volume VI). Methuen Publishing. ISBN 0-416-00901-8. 

External links[link]

• Graham Chapman at PythOnline Pythons Page
• Graham Chapman at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Graham Chapman at the Internet Broadway Database
• Graham Chapman at the Internet Movie Database
• Graham Chapman at Yahoo! Movies
• Graham Chapman at the BBC Comedy Guide
• Graham Chapman at the Comedy Zone
• Graham Chapman at Gay Greats