John Marwood Cleese was born in 1939 in Weston-Super-Mare. He studied Law at Cambridge University and has enjoyed a successful career in comedy, theatre, film and television.

He first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s, he co-founded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus and the four Monty Python films: And Now for Something Completely Different, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life.

In the mid-1970s, Cleese and his first wife, Connie Booth, co-wrote and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Later, he co-starred with Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis and former Python colleague Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. He has appeared in many other films, including the James Bond films, Harry Potter and Shrek and has guest-starred in numerous TV shows.