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Dr. Graham Arthur Chapman (January 8, 1941 – October 4, 1989) was an English
comedian, actor, writer, physician and one of the six members of the Monty Python
comedy troupe. He was also the lead actor in their two narrative films, playing
King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the title character in Monty
Python's Life of Brian.
 Education and
early performances
Chapman was educated at Melton Mowbray Grammar School and studied medicine at
Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge, where he began writing comedy with
fellow University student John Cleese. He qualified as a medical doctor at the
Barts Hospital Medical College, but never practised medicine professionally.
While at Cambridge, Chapman joined Footlights. His fellow members included Cleese,
Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, David Hatch, Jonathan Lynn, Humphrey Barclay, and Jo
Kendall. Their revue A Clump of Plinths was so successful at the Edinburgh Fringe
Festival that they renamed it Cambridge Circus, and took the revue to the West End
in London and later New Zealand and Broadway in September 1964. The revue appeared
in October 1964 on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Writing for the
BBC
Chapman and Cleese 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. 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's
Flying Circus
In 1969 Chapman and Cleese joined Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and
American artist Terry Gilliam for Monty Python's Flying Circus. Cleese and
Chapman's classic Python sketches include “The Ministry of Silly Walks”, "Raymond
Luxury Yacht", and “Dead Parrot”. One of Chapman's most famous characters was “The
Colonel”, a stuffy army officer who occasionally appeared from nowhere ordering an
end to the sketch for being "too silly". After Cleese left the series in 1973,
Chapman wrote alone, although he did work with Neil Innes and Douglas Adams for the
fourth and final series. He then developed a number of television and movie
projects, most notably Out of the Trees, The Odd Job and Yellowbeard, in which he
starred alongside Cleese, Peter Cook, Cheech and Chong and Marty Feldman, who died
during the final days of production.
After Python
In the late 1970s, Chapman moved to Los Angeles, where he guest-starred on many US
television shows, including The 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), and he began the first of a lengthy series of US college
comedy lecture tours in the 1980s. His memoir, A Liar's Autobiography, was
published in 1980 and, unusually for an autobiography, had five authors: Chapman,
his partner David Sherlock, Alex Martin, David Yallop and Douglas Adams, who in
1977 was virtually unknown as a recent graduate fresh from Cambridge. Together they
wrote a pilot for a TV series Out of the Trees, and Adams was mentored by Chapman,
but they later had a falling out and did not speak for several years.
Chapman's 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. Following
Chapman's death, there was no interest. 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, only a few of his projects have actually been
released. One such that has, is a play entitled O Happy Day, brought to life in
2000 by Dad's Garage Theatre Company in Atlanta, Georgia. Michael Palin and John
Cleese assisted the theatre company in adapting the play. He also appeared in the
Iron Maiden video, Can I Play with Madness.
Personal
life
Chapman was an alcoholic from his time in medical school through the 1970s. His
drinking affected his performance on the television recording set as well as on the
set of Holy Grail. He stopped drinking in December 1977.
Chapman kept his homosexuality a secret until the mid 1970s when he famously came
out on a chat show hosted by British jazz musician George Melly, thus 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 partner, David Sherlock, whom he had met in Ibiza in 1966, and
subsequently raised their son, John Tomiczek, together. After Chapman made his
homosexuality public, a member of the television audience wrote to the Pythons to
complain that she had heard a member of the team was gay, and included in the
letter a Biblical passage calling for all homosexuals to be stoned to death. With
fellow Pythons already aware of his sexual orientation, Eric Idle replied, "We've
found out who he was and we've taken him out and stoned him."
Chapman was a vocal spokesman for gay 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’.
Among Chapman's closest friends were Keith Moon of The Who, singer Harry Nilsson,
and Beatle Ringo Starr.
Death
Chapman died of pneumonia brought about by throat cancer, which had spread to his
spine. He was diagnosed in November 1988 after visiting his dentist where a growth
was found on his tonsils. At his side when he died were John Cleese, Michael Palin,
David Sherlock, his brother John and John's wife, although Cleese had to be led out
of the room to deal with his grief. Terry Jones and Peter Cook had visited earlier
that day.
Chapman's death occurred one day before the 20th anniversary of the first
broadcast of Flying Circus; Terry Jones called it “the worst case of party-pooping
in all history.” A memorial service was held for Chapman in December 1989 in the
Great Hall at St Bartholomew's Hospital. Cleese delivered the eulogy; after his
initial remarks, he said of his former colleague “…good riddance to him, the
freeloading bastard, I hope he fries!”, and then pointed out that Chapman would
have been disappointed if Cleese passed on the opportunity to scandalize the
audience.
He explained that Chapman would have been offended had Cleese, the first person
to say "shit" on British television, not used Chapman's own funeral as an
opportunity to also become the first person at a British memorial service to use
the word "fuck". Afterward, Cleese joined Gilliam, Jones, and Palin along with
Chapman's other friends as Idle led them in a rendition of "Always Look on the
Bright Side of Life" from the film Monty Python's Life of Brian.
On December 31, 1999 Chapman's ashes were rumored to have been "blasted into the
skies in a rocket.", though in actual fact, Sherlock scattered Chapman's ashes on
Snowdon, North Wales on June 18, 2005.
Legacy
The remaining Python members have acknowledged that Chapman was difficult to work
with. After his death, speculation of a Python revival inevitably faded, with Idle
saying, “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 actually
been accompanied by an urn, said to contain Chapman's ashes. At the 1998 Aspen
Comedy Arts festival, the urn was 'accidentally' knocked over by Gilliam, spilling
the 'ashes' on-stage. The cremains were then removed by vacuuming.
Asteroid 9617 Grahamchapman, named in Chapman's honour, is the first in a series of
six asteroids carrying the names of members of the Monty Python comedy troupe.
In 1997, the Graham Chapman Archives was started by Sherlock and Chapman's friend,
Jim Yoakum. Archives helps to preserve several of Chapman several unreleased work.
Later in '97, 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. Other novels have been released over the years, Ojril:
The Completely Incomplete Graham Chapman in 2000, and Calcium Made Interesting:
Sketches, Letters, Essays & Gondolas in 2005.
His college tours were also recorded over the years by Yoakum. "A Liar Live" CD was
delayed several times, but was released as A Six Pack of Lies in 1997. Other
college tours were also released, Spot the Loony in 2001, and Looks Like a Brown
Trouser Job in 2006. A DVD of the tours (Looks Like a Brown Trouser) was released
in 2005, with several special features.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Graham
Chapman - Generator - Biography
