The BAFTA Fellowship is a lifetime achievement award presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) since 1971 "in recognition of outstanding achievement in the art forms of the moving image", and is the highest honour the Academy can bestow. Fellowship recipients have been mainly film directors, but some have also been awarded to actors, film and television producers, cinematographers, film editors, screenwriters and (since 2007) to contributors to the video game industry. People from the United Kingdom dominate the list, but it includes over a dozen U.S. citizens and several from other countries in Europe, though none of the latter have been recognized since 1996. Shigeru Miyamoto, in 2010, became the first citizen of an Asian country to receive the award, and Rolf Harris the first from Australasia in 2012.

The inaugural recipient of the award was film-maker and producer Alfred Hitchcock. Twice the award has been made posthumously: to comedy pair Morecambe and Wise, recipients in 1999, and to Stanley Kubrick, who died that same year and was made a fellow in 2000. The most recent recipient was artist and musician Rolf Harris in 2012.

Michael Edward Palin, CBE, PRGS (born 5 May 1943) is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries. Palin wrote most of his comedic material with Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they had worked on other shows such as the Ken Dodd Show, The Frost Report and Do Not Adjust Your Set. Palin appeared in some of the most famous Python sketches, including "Argument Clinic," "Dead Parrot," "The Lumberjack Song," "The Spanish Inquisition," and "The Fish-Slapping Dance."

Palin continued to work with Jones after Python, co-writing Ripping Yarns. He has also appeared in several films directed by fellow Python Terry Gilliam and made notable appearances in other films such as A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedians' Comedian, he was voted the 30th favourite by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.

Rolf Harris, CBE, AM (born 30 March 1930) is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.

Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the characters. He also began a musical career initially with the piano accordion. He wrote the famous song "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", and when performing in Canada he introduced his popular routine around his song "Jake the Peg". He often uses unusual instruments in his performances: he plays the didgeridoo, has been credited with the invention of the wobble board, a rhythmic percussion instrument, and was associated with the Stylophone, a small electronic keyboard instrument.

From the 1960s he has become a popular television personality, presenting shows including Rolf's Cartoon Club, Animal Hospital and various programmes about serious art. In late 2005 he painted an official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, which was the subject of a special episode of Rolf on Art.

Dawn Roma French (born 11 October 1957) is a Welsh-born British actress, writer and comedienne. She is best known for starring in and writing for the comedy sketch show French and Saunders with comedy partner Jennifer Saunders and also for playing the lead role of Geraldine Granger in the sitcom The Vicar of Dibley. She has been nominated for seven BAFTA Awards and also won a Fellowship BAFTA along with Saunders.

French was born in Holyhead, Anglesey, Wales to English parents Denys Vernon French and Felicity "Roma" O'Brien of Irish origin from Plymouth. She was educated at the independent St Dunstan's Abbey School (now absorbed by Plymouth College) boarding school on North Road West in Plymouth, Devon, England. She has a brother, Gary French, who was born in 1955. Her father, Denys (5 August 1932 – 11 September 1977), was a member of the Royal Air Force, being stationed at RAF Valley. The RAF partly funded her private education. When her father was stationed at the former RAF Faldingworth, she attended Caistor Grammar School in Lincolnshire, boarding in the school's Lindsey house. She later won a debating scholarship that brought her to study at the Spence School in New York.

Jennifer Jane Saunders (born 6 July 1958) is an English comedienne, screenwriter, singer and actress. She has won two BAFTAs, an International Emmy Award, a British Comedy Award, a Rose d'Or Light Entertainment Festival Award, two Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards, and a People's Choice Award.

She first came into widespread attention in the 1980s and early 1990s when she became a member of the Comic Strip after graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama. With her comedy partner Dawn French, she writes and stars in their eponymous sketch show, French & Saunders, for which she and French received a BAFTA fellowship in 2009, and she has received international acclaim for writing and playing the lead role of Edina Monsoon in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.

She has guest starred in the American sitcoms Roseanne and Friends, and won the American People's Choice Award for voicing the wicked Fairy Godmother in DreamWorks' animated Shrek 2.

Saunders was born in Sleaford, Lincolnshire on 6 July 1958. Her mother was a biology teacher, and her father served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force (RAF), reached the rank of Air Marshal and later worked for British Aerospace. Because her father was in the armed forces, Saunders moved to different schools many times. She was educated from the age of five to 18 in boarding schools and then at St Paul's Girls' School, an independent school in west London. After school, she worked for a year in Italy as an au pair.