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Stephen Fry
Sir Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, and writer. He came to prominence as a member of the comic act Fry and Laurie alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1989–1995) and Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993). Fry starred in the sketch comedy series Alfresco (1983–1984) and the sitcom Blackadder (1986–1989). He was the original host of the comedy panel show QI (2003–2016), for which he was nominated for six British Academy Television Awards. Fry's additional television roles include Kingdom (2007–2009), Bones (2007–2017) and It's a Sin (2021). In 2006, the British public ranked Fry number 9 in ITV's poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars.
Fry's film credits include Chariots of Fire (1981), A Fish Called Wanda (1988) Gosford Park (2001), The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004), V for Vendetta (2005), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), and Love & Friendship (2016). He portrays the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and its 2016 sequel, and the Master of Lake-town in the film trilogy adaptation of The Hobbit. For playing Oscar Wilde in the film Wilde (1997), Fry was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. Between 2001 and 2017, he hosted the British Academy Film Awards 12 times.
Fry is known for his work in theatre. In 1984, he adapted Me and My Girl for the West End where it ran for eight years and received two Laurence Olivier Awards. After it transferred to Broadway, he received a Tony Award nomination. In 2012 he played Malvolio in Twelfth Night at Shakespeare's Globe. The production was then taken to the West End, before transferring to Broadway where he received a nomination for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
Fry has written and presented several documentary series, including the Emmy Award-winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive (2006) and the travel series Stephen Fry in America (2008). He is also a prolific writer, contributing to newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and three autobiographies. He has lent his voice to numerous projects including the audiobooks for all seven of the Harry Potter novels as well as the Paddington Bear books. Since 2011, Fry has served as president of the mental health charity Mind. In 2025, he was knighted for services to mental health awareness, the environment and charity.
Stephen John Fry was born on 24 August 1957 in the Hampstead area of London, the son of historian Marianne Eve Fry (née Neumann) and physicist and inventor Alan John Fry (1930–2019). He has an older brother, Roger, and a younger sister, Joanna. His paternal grandmother, Ella Fry (née Pring), had roots in Cheshire and Kent. The Fry family originates around the Shillingstone and Blandford areas of Dorset; in the early 1800s, Samuel Fry settled in Surrey, with his descendants residing in Middlesex. In his autobiographical writings and elsewhere, Fry has claimed relationship to the Fry family that founded the eponymous chocolate company, John Fry (one of the signatories to the death warrant for Charles I), and the cricketer C. B. Fry. Fry's mother is Jewish, but he was not brought up in a religious family. His maternal grandparents, Martin and Rosa Neumann, were Hungarian Jews who emigrated from Šurany (now in Slovakia) to the UK in 1927. Rosa's parents, who originally lived in Vienna, were deported to a Nazi ghetto in Riga, where they were killed. His mother's aunt and cousins were sent to Auschwitz and Stutthof and never seen again.
Fry grew up in the village of Booton, Norfolk, having moved at an early age from Chesham, Buckinghamshire, where he had attended Chesham Preparatory School. He briefly attended Cawston Primary School in Cawston, Norfolk, before going on to Stouts Hill Preparatory School in Uley, Gloucestershire, at the age of seven, and then to Uppingham School in Rutland, where he joined Fircroft house and was described as a "near-asthmatic genius". He took his O-levels in 1972 at the early age of 14 and passed all except physics, but was expelled from Uppingham half a term into the sixth form. Fry described himself as a "monstrous" child and wrote that he was expelled for "various misdemeanours". He was later dismissed from Paston School, a grant-maintained grammar school that refused to let him progress to study A-Levels.
Fry moved to Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, where, after two years in the sixth form studying English, French, and History of Art, he ultimately failed his A-Levels, not turning up for his English and French papers. Over the summer, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen from a family friend. He had taken a coat when leaving a pub, planning to spend the night sleeping rough, but had then discovered the card in a pocket. He was arrested in Swindon and, as a result, spent three months in Pucklechurch Remand Centre on remand. Following his release, he resumed his education at City College Norwich, promising administrators that he would study rigorously and sit the Cambridge entrance exams. In 1977 he passed two A-levels in English and French, with grades of A and B. He also received a grade A in an alternative O-level in the Study of Art and scored a distinction in an S-level paper in English. Having successfully passed the entrance exams in 1977, Fry was offered a scholarship to Queens' College, Cambridge, for matriculation in 1978, briefly teaching at Cundall Manor School, a preparatory school in North Yorkshire, before taking his place. At Cambridge, he joined the Footlights, appeared on the University Challenge TV quiz, and read English Literature, graduating with an upper second-class honours BA degree in 1981 (subsequently promoted automatically to a Cambridge MA degree). Fry also met his future comedy collaborator Hugh Laurie (through their mutual friend Emma Thompson) at Cambridge and starred alongside him in the Footlights.
Fry wrote the play Latin! or Tobacco and Boys for the 1980 Edinburgh Festival, where it won the Fringe First prize. It had a revival in 2009 at London's Cock Tavern Theatre, directed by Adam Spreadbury-Maher. The Cellar Tapes, the Footlights Revue of 1981, won the Perrier Comedy Award. In 1984, Fry adapted the hugely successful 1930s musical Me and My Girl for the West End, where it ran for eight years and received two Laurence Olivier Awards. The show transferred to Broadway and Fry was nominated for a Tony Award for his adaptation.
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Stephen Fry
Sir Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, and writer. He came to prominence as a member of the comic act Fry and Laurie alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1989–1995) and Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993). Fry starred in the sketch comedy series Alfresco (1983–1984) and the sitcom Blackadder (1986–1989). He was the original host of the comedy panel show QI (2003–2016), for which he was nominated for six British Academy Television Awards. Fry's additional television roles include Kingdom (2007–2009), Bones (2007–2017) and It's a Sin (2021). In 2006, the British public ranked Fry number 9 in ITV's poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars.
Fry's film credits include Chariots of Fire (1981), A Fish Called Wanda (1988) Gosford Park (2001), The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004), V for Vendetta (2005), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), and Love & Friendship (2016). He portrays the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and its 2016 sequel, and the Master of Lake-town in the film trilogy adaptation of The Hobbit. For playing Oscar Wilde in the film Wilde (1997), Fry was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. Between 2001 and 2017, he hosted the British Academy Film Awards 12 times.
Fry is known for his work in theatre. In 1984, he adapted Me and My Girl for the West End where it ran for eight years and received two Laurence Olivier Awards. After it transferred to Broadway, he received a Tony Award nomination. In 2012 he played Malvolio in Twelfth Night at Shakespeare's Globe. The production was then taken to the West End, before transferring to Broadway where he received a nomination for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
Fry has written and presented several documentary series, including the Emmy Award-winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive (2006) and the travel series Stephen Fry in America (2008). He is also a prolific writer, contributing to newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and three autobiographies. He has lent his voice to numerous projects including the audiobooks for all seven of the Harry Potter novels as well as the Paddington Bear books. Since 2011, Fry has served as president of the mental health charity Mind. In 2025, he was knighted for services to mental health awareness, the environment and charity.
Stephen John Fry was born on 24 August 1957 in the Hampstead area of London, the son of historian Marianne Eve Fry (née Neumann) and physicist and inventor Alan John Fry (1930–2019). He has an older brother, Roger, and a younger sister, Joanna. His paternal grandmother, Ella Fry (née Pring), had roots in Cheshire and Kent. The Fry family originates around the Shillingstone and Blandford areas of Dorset; in the early 1800s, Samuel Fry settled in Surrey, with his descendants residing in Middlesex. In his autobiographical writings and elsewhere, Fry has claimed relationship to the Fry family that founded the eponymous chocolate company, John Fry (one of the signatories to the death warrant for Charles I), and the cricketer C. B. Fry. Fry's mother is Jewish, but he was not brought up in a religious family. His maternal grandparents, Martin and Rosa Neumann, were Hungarian Jews who emigrated from Šurany (now in Slovakia) to the UK in 1927. Rosa's parents, who originally lived in Vienna, were deported to a Nazi ghetto in Riga, where they were killed. His mother's aunt and cousins were sent to Auschwitz and Stutthof and never seen again.
Fry grew up in the village of Booton, Norfolk, having moved at an early age from Chesham, Buckinghamshire, where he had attended Chesham Preparatory School. He briefly attended Cawston Primary School in Cawston, Norfolk, before going on to Stouts Hill Preparatory School in Uley, Gloucestershire, at the age of seven, and then to Uppingham School in Rutland, where he joined Fircroft house and was described as a "near-asthmatic genius". He took his O-levels in 1972 at the early age of 14 and passed all except physics, but was expelled from Uppingham half a term into the sixth form. Fry described himself as a "monstrous" child and wrote that he was expelled for "various misdemeanours". He was later dismissed from Paston School, a grant-maintained grammar school that refused to let him progress to study A-Levels.
Fry moved to Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, where, after two years in the sixth form studying English, French, and History of Art, he ultimately failed his A-Levels, not turning up for his English and French papers. Over the summer, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen from a family friend. He had taken a coat when leaving a pub, planning to spend the night sleeping rough, but had then discovered the card in a pocket. He was arrested in Swindon and, as a result, spent three months in Pucklechurch Remand Centre on remand. Following his release, he resumed his education at City College Norwich, promising administrators that he would study rigorously and sit the Cambridge entrance exams. In 1977 he passed two A-levels in English and French, with grades of A and B. He also received a grade A in an alternative O-level in the Study of Art and scored a distinction in an S-level paper in English. Having successfully passed the entrance exams in 1977, Fry was offered a scholarship to Queens' College, Cambridge, for matriculation in 1978, briefly teaching at Cundall Manor School, a preparatory school in North Yorkshire, before taking his place. At Cambridge, he joined the Footlights, appeared on the University Challenge TV quiz, and read English Literature, graduating with an upper second-class honours BA degree in 1981 (subsequently promoted automatically to a Cambridge MA degree). Fry also met his future comedy collaborator Hugh Laurie (through their mutual friend Emma Thompson) at Cambridge and starred alongside him in the Footlights.
Fry wrote the play Latin! or Tobacco and Boys for the 1980 Edinburgh Festival, where it won the Fringe First prize. It had a revival in 2009 at London's Cock Tavern Theatre, directed by Adam Spreadbury-Maher. The Cellar Tapes, the Footlights Revue of 1981, won the Perrier Comedy Award. In 1984, Fry adapted the hugely successful 1930s musical Me and My Girl for the West End, where it ran for eight years and received two Laurence Olivier Awards. The show transferred to Broadway and Fry was nominated for a Tony Award for his adaptation.