Michael Palin

Image by Alex Drennan

Michael Edward Palin, CBE, FRGS (pronounced /ˈpeɪlɨn/; 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.[1] In a 2005 poll to find The Comedians’ Comedian, he was voted the 30th favourite by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.[2]

After Python, he began a new career as a travel writer and travel documentarian. His journeys have taken him across the world, including the North and South Poles, the Sahara Desert, the Himalayas, Eastern Europe and, most recently, Brazil. In 2000 Palin was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to television.[3] From 2009 to 2012 Palin was the president of the Royal Geographical Society.[4] On 12 May 2013, Palin was made a BAFTA fellow, the highest honor that is conferred by the organization.[5]

Contents
[hide] 1 Early life and career
2 Monty Python
3 Other work
4 Television documentaries 4.1 Travel
4.2 Art and history

5 Activism
6 Recognition
7 Bibliography 7.1 Travel books
7.2 Autobiography (contributor)
7.3 Diaries
7.4 Fiction
7.5 Children’s books
7.6 Plays

8 Selected filmography
9 Television
10 Awards 10.1 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films
10.2 Evening Standard British Film Awards
10.3 Writers’ Guild of Great Britain
10.4 DVD Exclusive Awards
10.5 British Comedy Awards
10.6 BAFTA Awards

11 References
12 Further reading
13 External links

Early life and career[edit source]

Palin was born in Broomhill, Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, the second child and only son of Mary Rachel Lockhart (née Ovey) and Edward Moreton Palin.[6][7] His father was a Shrewsbury School and Cambridge-educated engineer working for a steel firm.[8] His maternal grandfather, Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Lockhart Ovey, DSO, was High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1927.[9] He started his education at Birkdale Preparatory School, Sheffield, and later Shrewsbury School. His sister Angela was nine years older than he was. Despite the age gap the two had a close relationship until her suicide in 1987.[8][10] He has ancestral roots in Letterkenny, County Donegal.[11]

When he was five years old, Palin had his first acting experience at Birkdale playing Martha Cratchit in a school performance of A Christmas Carol. At the age of 10, Palin, still interested in acting, made a comedy monologue and read a Shakespeare play to his mother while playing all the parts.[12] After his school days in 1962 he went on to read modern history at Brasenose College, Oxford. With fellow student Robert Hewison he performed and wrote, for the first time, comedy material at a university Christmas party.[13] Terry Jones, also a student in Oxford, saw that performance and began writing together with Hewison and Palin.[12] In the same year Palin joined the Brightside and Carbrook Co-Operative Society Players and first gained fame when he won an acting award at a Co-Op drama festival.[14] He also performed and wrote in the Oxford Revue (called the Et ceteras) with Jones.[15]

In 1966 he married Helen Gibbins, whom he first met in 1959 on holiday in Southwold in Suffolk.[8] This meeting was later fictionalised in Palin’s play East of Ipswich.[16] The couple have three children and a grandchild. His youngest child, Rachel (b. 1975) is a BBC TV director, whose work includes MasterChef: The Professionals, shown on BBC2 throughout October and November 2010.[17][18] While still a baby, his son William briefly appeared in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as "Sir Not-appearing-in-this-film". His nephew is the theatre designer Jeremy Herbert.[citation needed]

After finishing university in 1965 Palin became a presenter on a comedy pop show called Now! for the television contractor Television Wales and the West.[19] At the same time Palin was contacted by Jones, who had left university a year earlier, for assistance in writing a theatrical documentary about sex through the ages.[20] Although this project was eventually abandoned, it brought Palin and Jones together as a writing duo and led them to write comedy for various BBC programmes, such as The Ken Dodd Show, The Billy Cotton Bandshow, and The Illustrated Weekly Hudd.[21] They collaborated in writing lyrics for an album by Barry Booth called Diversions. They were also in the team of writers working for The Frost Report, whose other members included Frank Muir, Barry Cryer, Marty Feldman, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Dick Vosburgh and future Monty Python members Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Eric Idle. Although the members of Monty Python had already encountered each other over the years, The Frost Report was the first time all the British members of Monty Python (its sixth member, Terry Gilliam, was at that time an American citizen) worked together.[8] During the run of The Frost Report the Palin/Jones team contributed material to two shows starring John Bird: The Late Show and A series of Bird’s. For A series of Bird’s the Palin/Jones team had their first experience of writing narrative instead of the short sketches they were accustomed to conceiving.[22]

Following The Frost Report the Palin/Jones team worked both as actors and writers on the show Twice a Fortnight with Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, and the successful children’s comedy show Do Not Adjust Your Set with Idle and David Jason. The show also featured musical numbers by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, including future Monty Python musical collaborator Neil Innes. The animations for Do Not Adjust Your Set were made by Terry Gilliam. Eager to work with Palin[23] sans Jones, Cleese later asked him to perform in How to Irritate People together with Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor. The Palin/Jones team were reunited for The Complete and Utter History of Britain.

During this period Cleese contacted Palin about doing the show that would ultimately become Monty Python’s Flying Circus.[8] On the strength of their work on The Frost Report and other programmes, Cleese and Chapman had been offered a show by the BBC, but Cleese was reluctant to do a two-man show for various reasons, among them Chapman’s reputedly difficult personality. At the same time the success of Do Not Adjust Your Set had led Palin, Jones, Idle and Gilliam to be offered their own series and, while it was still in production, Palin agreed to Cleese’s proposal and brought along Idle, Jones and Gilliam. Thus the formation of the Monty Python troupe has been referred to as a result of Cleese’s desire to work with Palin and the chance circumstances that brought the other four members into the fold.[24]

Monty Python[edit source]

Main article: Monty Python

In Monty Python, Palin played various roles, which ranged from manic enthusiasm (such as the lumberjack of the Lumberjack Song, or Herbert Anchovy, host of the game show "Blackmail") to unflappable calmness (such as the Dead Parrot vendor, Cheese Shop proprietor, or Postal Clerk). As a straight man he was often a foil to the rising ire of characters portrayed by John Cleese. He also played timid, socially inept characters such as Arthur Putey, the man who sits idly by as a marriage counsellor (Eric Idle) makes love to his wife (Carol Cleveland), and Mr. Anchovy, a chartered accountant who wants to become a lion tamer. He also appeared as the "It’s" man at the beginning of most episodes.

Palin frequently co-wrote sketches with Terry Jones and also initiated the "Spanish Inquisition sketch", which included the catchphrase "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" He also composed songs with Jones including "The Lumberjack Song", "Every Sperm is Sacred" and "Spam". His solo musical compositions included "Decomposing Composers" and "Finland".[25]

Other work[edit source]

After the Monty Python television series ended in 1974, the Palin/Jones team worked on Ripping Yarns, an intermittent television comedy series broadcast over three years from 1976. They had earlier collaborated on the play Secrets from the BBC series Black and Blue in 1973. He starred as Dennis the Peasant in Terry Gilliam’s 1977 film Jabberwocky. Palin also appeared in All You Need Is Cash (1978) as Eric Manchester (based on Derek Taylor), the press agent for the Rutles.

In 1980, Palin co-wrote Time Bandits with Terry Gilliam. He also acted in the film.

In 1982, Palin wrote and starred in The Missionary, co-starring Maggie Smith. In it, he plays the Reverend Charles Fortescue, who is recalled from Africa to aid prostitutes.

In 1984, he reunited with Terry Gilliam to appear in Brazil. He appeared in the comedy film A Fish Called Wanda, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.[1] Cleese reunited the main cast almost a decade later to make Fierce Creatures.

After filming for Fierce Creatures finished, Palin went on a travel journey for a BBC documentary and, returning a year later, found that the end of Fierce Creatures had failed at test screenings and had to be reshot.

Apart from Fierce Creatures, Palin’s last film role was a small part in The Wind in the Willows, a film directed by and starring Terry Jones. Palin also appeared with John Cleese in his documentary, The Human Face. Palin was in the cast of You’ve Got Mail, the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy as a subplot novelist, but his role was eventually cut entirely.[26]

He also assisted Campaign for Better Transport and others with campaigns on sustainable transport, particularly those relating to urban areas, and has been president of the campaign since 1986.[27]

Palin has also appeared in serious drama. In 1991 Palin worked as producer and actor in the film American Friends based upon a real event in the life of his great grandfather, a fellow at St John’s College, Oxford. [28] In that same year he also played the part of a headmaster in Alan Bleasdale’s Channel 4 drama series G.B.H..

Palin also had a small cameo role in Australian soap opera Home and Away. He played an English surfer with a fear of sharks, who interrupts a conversation between two main characters to ask whether there were any sharks in the sea. This was filmed while he was in Australia for the Full Circle series, with a segment about the filming of the role featuring in the series.

In November 2005, he appeared in the John Peel’s Record Box documentary.[29]

Michael Palin, Nightingale House, November 2010
Michael Palin is set to appear in a new First World War drama titled The Wiper Times written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman.[30]

Television documentaries[edit source]

Travel[edit source]

Palin’s first travel documentary was part of the 1980 BBC Television series Great Railway Journeys of the World, in which, humorously reminiscing about his childhood hobby of train spotting, he travelled throughout the UK by train, from London to the Kyle of Lochalsh, via Manchester, York, Newcastle upon Tyne, Edinburgh and Inverness. At the Kyle of Lochalsh, Palin bought the station’s long metal platform sign and is seen lugging it back to London with him.

In 1994, Palin travelled through Ireland for the same series, entitled "Derry to Kerry". In a quest for family roots, he attempted to trace his great grandmother – Brita Gallagher – who set sail from Ireland 150 years ago during the Great Famine (1845–1849), bound for a new life in Burlington, New Jersey. The series is a trip along the Palin family line.

Starting in 1989, Palin appeared as presenter in a series of travel programmes made for the BBC. It was after the veteran TV globetrotter Alan Whicker and journalist Miles Kington turned down presenting the first of these, Around the World in 80 Days, that gave Palin the opportunity to present his first and subsequent travel shows.[31] These programmes have been broadcast around the world in syndication, and were also sold on VHS tape and later on DVD:
Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days (Travel 1988; Programme release 1989): travelling as closely as possible the path described in the famous Jules Verne story without using aircraft.
Pole to Pole (Travel 1991; Programme release 1992): travelling from the North Pole to the South Pole, following as closely as possible the 30 degree line of longitude, over as much land as possible, i.e., through Europe and Africa.
Full Circle with Michael Palin (Travel 1996/97; Programme release 1997): in which he circumnavigated the lands around the Pacific Ocean anti-clockwise; a journey of almost 50,000 miles (80,000 km) starting on Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait and taking him through Asia, Oceania and the Americas.
Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure (1999): retracing the footsteps of Ernest Hemingway through the United States, Europe, Africa and the Caribbean.
Sahara with Michael Palin (Travel 2001/02; Programme release 2002): in which he trekked around and through the world’s largest desert.
Himalaya with Michael Palin (Travel 2003/04; Programme release 2004): in which he travels through the Himalaya region.
Michael Palin’s New Europe (Travel 2006/07; Programme release 2007): in which he travels through Central and Eastern Europe.
Brazil with Michael Palin (2012) in which he travels through Brazil.

Following each trip, Palin wrote a book about his travels, providing information and insights not included in the TV programme. Each book is illustrated with photographs by Basil Pao, the stills photographer who was on the team. (Exception: the first book, Around the World in 80 Days, contains some pictures by Pao but most are by other photographers.)

All seven of these books were also made available as audio books, and all of them are read by Palin himself. Around the World in 80 Days and Hemingway Adventure are unabridged, while the other four books were made in both abridged and unabridged versions, although the unabridged versions can be very difficult to find.[citation needed]

For four of the trips a photography book was made by Pao, each with an introduction written by Palin. These are large coffee-table style books with pictures printed on glossy paper. The majority of the pictures are of various people encountered on the trip, as informal portraits or showing them engaged in some interesting activity. Some of the landscape photos are displayed as two-page spreads.

Palin’s travel programmes are responsible for a phenomenon termed the "Palin effect": areas of the world that he has visited suddenly become popular tourist attractions – for example, the significant increase in the number of tourists interested in Peru after Palin visited Machu Picchu.[32] In a 2006 survey of "15 of the world’s top travel writers" by The Observer, Palin named Peru’s Pongo de Mainique (canyon below the Machu Picchu) his "favourite place in the world".[33]

Art and history[edit source]

In recent years, Palin has written and presented occasional documentary programmes on artists that interest him. The first, on Scottish painter Anne Redpath, was Palin on Redpath in 1997. In The Bright Side of Life (2000), Palin continued on a Scottish theme, looking at the work of the Scottish Colourists. Two further programmes followed on European painters; Michael Palin and the Ladies Who Loved Matisse (2004) and Michael Palin and the Mystery of Hammershøi (2005), about the French artist Henri Matisse and Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi respectively. The DVD Michael Palin on Art contains all these documentaries except for the Matisse programme.

In November 2008, Palin presented a First World War documentary about Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, when thousands of soldiers lost their lives in battle after the war had officially ended. Palin filmed on the battlefields of Northern France and Belgium for the programme, called the Last Day of World War One, produced for the BBC’s Timewatch series.[34]

Activism[edit source]

In July 2010, Palin sent a message of support for the Dongria Kondh tribe of India, who are resisting a mine on their land by the company Vedanta Resources. Palin said, "I’ve been to the Nyamgiri Hills in Orissa and seen the forces of money and power that Vedanta Resources have arrayed against a people who have occupied their land for thousands of years, who husband the forest sustainably and make no great demands on the state or the government. The tribe I visited simply want to carry on living in the villages that they and their ancestors have always lived in".[35]

On 2 January 2011, Palin became the first person to sign the UK-based Campaign for Better Transport’s Fair Fares Now campaign.

Recognition[edit source]

Class 153, no. 153335 ‘Michael Palin’ at Cambridge.
Each member of Monty Python has an asteroid named after him. Palin’s is Asteroid 9621 Michaelpalin.[36]

In honour of his achievements as a traveller, especially rail travel, Palin has two British trains named after him. In 2002, Virgin Trains’ new £5m high speed Super Voyager train number 221130 was named "Michael Palin" – it carries his name externally and a plaque is located adjacent to the onboard shop with information on Palin and his many journeys.[37] Also, National Express East Anglia named a British Rail Class 153 (unit number 153335) after him. In 2008, he received the James Joyce Award of the Literary and Historical Society in Dublin.

Palin was instrumental in setting up the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children in 1993.[38]

In recognition of his services to the promotion of geography, Palin was awarded the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in March 2009, along with a Fellowship to the Society.[39] In June 2013, he was similarly honoured in Canada with a gold medal for achievements in geography by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.[40]

In June 2009, Palin was elected for a three-year term as President of the Royal Geographical Society.[41]

Because of his self-described "amenable, conciliatory character" Michael Palin has been referred to as unofficially "Britain’s Nicest Man."[42]

Bibliography[edit source]

Travel books[edit source] Around the World in 80 Days (1989) ISBN 0-563-20826-0
Pole to Pole (1992) ISBN 0-563-37065-3
Full Circle (1997) ISBN 0-563-37121-8
Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure (1999) ISBN 0-297-82528-3
Sahara (2002) ISBN 0-297-84303-6
Himalaya (2004) ISBN 0-297-84371-0
New Europe (2007) ISBN 0-297-84449-0
Brazil (2012) ISBN 0-297-86626-5

All his travel books can be read at no charge, complete and unabridged, on his website.

Autobiography (contributor)[edit source] The Pythons Autobiography by The Pythons (2003) ISBN 0-7528-5293-0

Diaries[edit source] Diaries 1969–1979: The Python Years. 2006. ISBN 0-297-84436-9
Diaries 1980–1988: Halfway to Hollywood – The Film Years. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 2009. ISBN 978-0-297-84440-2

Fiction[edit source] Hemingway’s chair (1995) ISBN 0-7493-1930-5
Bert Fegg’s Nasty Book for Boys and Girls w/Terry Jones, illus Martin Honeysett, Frank Bellamy et al. (1974) ISBN 0-413-32740-X
Dr Fegg’s Encyclopaedia of all world knowledge (1984) (expanded reprint of the above, with Terry Jones and Martin Honeysett) ISBN 0-87226-005-4
The Truth (2012) ISBN 978-0297860211

Children’s books[edit source] Small Harry and the Toothache Pills (1982) ISBN 0-416-23690-1
Limerics or The Limerick Book (1985) ISBN 0-09-161540-2
Cyril and the House of Commons (1986) ISBN 1-85145-078-5
Cyril and the Dinner Party (1986) ISBN 1-85145-069-6
The Mirrorstone with Alan Lee and Richard Seymour (1986) ISBN 0-224-02408-6

Plays[edit source] The Weekend (1994) ISBN 0-413-68940-9

Selected filmography[edit source]

Year

Film

Role

Notes

1971 And Now for Something Completely Different Various Roles Also Writer
1975 Monty Python and the Holy Grail Various Roles Also Writer
Three Men in a Boat Harris
1977 Jabberwocky Dennis Cooper
1978 All You Need Is Cash Eric Manchester/Lawyer
1979 Monty Python’s Life of Brian Various Roles Also Writer
1981 Time Bandits Vincent Also Writer
Nominated – Saturn Award for Best Writing
1982 Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl Various Roles Also Writer
The Missionary The Reverend Charles Fortescue Also Writer/Producer
1983 Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life Various Roles Also Writer
The Crimson Permanent Assurance Workman Short Film
1984 A Private Function Gilbert Chilvers
1985 Brazil Jack Lint
1988 A Fish Called Wanda Ken Pile BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
1991 American Friends Reverend Francis Ashby Also Writer
1996 The Wind in the Willows The Sun
1997 Fierce Creatures Adrian ‘Bugsy’ Malone
2010 Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy) Mrs. Betty Palin/Julius Caesar/Bevis

Television[edit source] Now! (October 1965 – middle 1966)
The Ken Dodd Show
Billy Cotton Bandshow
The Illustrated Weekly Hudd
The Frost Report. (10 March 1966 – 29 June 1967)
The Late Show (15 October 1966 – 1 April 1967)
A Series of Bird’s (1967) (3 October 1967 – 21 November 1967 screenwriter (guest stars)
Twice a Fortnight (21 October 1967 – 23 December 1967)
Do Not Adjust Your Set (26 December 1967 – 14 May 1969)
Broaden Your Mind (1968)
How to Irritate People (1968)
Marty (TV series) (1968)
The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969)
Monty Python’s Flying Circus (5 October 1969 – 5 December 1974)
Saturday Night Live (Hosted 8 April 1978 with Musical Guest Eugene Record, and 27 January 1979 with The Doobie Brothers)
Ripping Yarns (1976–1979)
Great Railway Journeys of the World, episode title "Confessions of a Trainspotter" (1980)
East of Ipswich (1987) writer
Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days (1989)
GBH (1991)
Pole to Pole (1992)
Great Railway Journeys, episode title "Derry to Kerry" (1994)
The Wind in the Willows (1995)
The Willows in Winter (1996)
Full Circle with Michael Palin (1997)
Palin On Redpath (1997)
Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure (1999)
Michael Palin On… The Colourists (2000)
Sahara with Michael Palin (2002)
Life on Air (2002)
Himalaya with Michael Palin (2004)
Michael Palin’s New Europe (2007)
Around the World in 20 Years (30 December 2008)
Brazil with Michael Palin (2012)

Awards[edit source]

Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films[edit source] 1982 Nominated – Saturn Award for Best Writing for Time Bandits (shared with Terry Gilliam)

Evening Standard British Film Awards[edit source] 1986 Won – "Peter Sellers Award for Comedy"

Writers’ Guild of Great Britain[edit source] 1991 Won – Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Award for "Film – Screenplay" for American Friends (shared with Tristram Powell)

DVD Exclusive Awards[edit source] 2001 Nominated – "Video Premiere Award for Best Audio Commentary" for Monty Python and the Holy Grail (shared with John Cleese and Eric Idle)

British Comedy Awards[edit source] 2002 Won – British Comedy Award for "Lifetime Achievement"

BAFTA Awards[edit source] 1984 Nominated – BAFTA Award for "Best Original Song" (the award was discontinued after the 1985 ceremonies) for Every Sperm is Sacred from The Meaning of Life (shared with André Jacquemin, Dave Howman and Terry Jones)
1989 Won – BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for A Fish Called Wanda (as Ken Pile)[43] 1992 Nominated – British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for G.B.H.
2005 Won – BAFTA Special Award
2009 Won – BAFTA Special Award as part of the Monty Python team for outstanding contribution to film and television[44] 2013 Won – BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award[45][46]