Bertram Wilberforce "Bertie" Wooster is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves novels of British author P. G. Wodehouse. An English gentleman, one of the "idle rich" and a member of the Drones Club, he appears alongside his valet, Jeeves, whose genius manages to extricate Bertie or one of his friends from numerous awkward situations. As the first-person narrator of ten novels and over 30 short stories, Bertie ranks as one of the most vivid comic creations in popular literature. Bertie’s middle name, “Wilberforce”, is the doing of his father, who won money on a horse named Wilberforce in the Grand National the day before Bertie was born and insisted on Bertie carrying that name (mentioned in Much Obliged, Jeeves).

Due to the volume of stories and time span over which Wodehouse wrote them, there are a number of inconsistencies and contradictions in the information given about his relatives. "Bertie" and several of his relations appear in the early Wodehouse story "Extricating Young Gussie". In that story the family name is Mannering-Phipps, not Wooster, and the story has never been included in collections of Jeeves and Wooster materials, however the incidents described in "Extricating Young Gussie" are referred to in later stories.

James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE (born 11 June 1959), known as Hugh Laurie (/ˈhjuː ˈlɒri/), is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director. He first became known as one half of the Fry and Laurie double act, along with his friend and comedy partner Stephen Fry, whom he joined in the cast of Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster from 1987 to 1999.

From 2004 to 2012, he played Dr Gregory House, the protagonist of House, for which he received two Golden Globe awards, two Screen Actors Guild awards, and six Emmy nominations. As of August 2010, Laurie is the highest paid actor in a drama series on US television. He has been listed in the 2011 Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid actor ever in a TV Drama—earning US$ 700,000 per episode in House—and for being the most watched leading man on television.

Laurie was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. The youngest of four children, Laurie has an older brother named Charles and two older sisters named Susan and Janet. He had a somewhat strained relationship with his mother, Patricia (née Laidlaw). His father, Ran Laurie, was a medical doctor who also won an Olympic gold medal in the coxless pairs (rowing) at the 1948 London Games.

Ian Gillett Carmichael, OBE (18 June 1920 – 5 February 2010) was an English film, stage, television and radio actor.

Carmichael was born in Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. The son of an optician, he was educated at Scarborough College and Bromsgrove School, before training as an actor at RADA. He made his stage debut as a robot at the People's Palace in Mile End, East London in 1939. With the outbreak of World War II his acting career was interrupted by service with the Royal Armoured Corps as a commissioned officer in the 22nd Dragoons. He served in the Normandy campaign, losing the tip of one finger to an accident with the turret hatch of a Valentine tank, and reached the rank of major before leaving the Army in 1947.

The young actor left his family's shopkeeping business in Hull to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and to sing in talent contests at the Hammersmith Palais de Danse.

He portrayed serious characters in Betrayed (1954), starring Clark Gable and Lana Turner, and in The Colditz Story (1955), but he made his name playing in a series of films for the Boulting brothers, including Private's Progress (1956), Brothers in Law (1957) and I'm All Right Jack (1959), as well as similar films for other producers, for example School for Scoundrels (1960). He also appeared in the "Pride" segment of The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971).

Dennis Price (23 June 1915 – 6 October 1973) was an English actor, remembered for his suave screen roles, particularly Louis Mazzini in Kind Hearts and Coronets and for his portrayal of the omniscient valet Jeeves in 1960s television adaptations of P. G. Wodehouse's stories.

Price was born Dennistoun Franklyn John Rose-Price in Twyford in Berkshire, son of Brigadier-General Thomas Rose Caradoc Price and his wife Dorothy, née Verey. He attended Copthorne Prep School, Radley College and Worcester College, Oxford. He studied acting at the Embassy Theatre School of Acting.

Price made his first appearance on stage at the Croydon Repertory Theatre in June 1937, followed by a London debut at the Queen's Theatre on 6 September 1937 in Richard II. He served in the Royal Artillery from March 1940 to June 1942 but quickly returned to acting after discharge, appearing with Noël Coward in This Happy Breed and Present Laughter and later as Charles Condomine in Blithe Spirit, which he later named in Who's Who in the Theatre as one of his two favourite parts along with the title role in André Obey's Noah. In the 1950s, Price appeared in London and New York in new plays and revivals of classics. In 1957 he made his debut in South Africa in lead roles in Separate Tables.

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 US states. Since 2003 he has been the host of the quiz show QI.