Eric Idle

Eric Idle (Born March 29, 1943) is a comedian, actor and film director, as well as an author and accomplished guitarist/songwriter. He wrote and performed as part of the Monty Python team.

Early Life

Eric was born in South Shields, County Durham, England. Idle's father had been in the Royal Air Force and survived the Second World War, only to be killed in a car crash shortly afterwards. His mother had difficulty coping with a full-time job and raising a child, so at the age of seven she enrolled him into the Royal Wolverhampton School as a boarder.

Related Topics:
South Shields - County Durham - England - Royal Air Force - Second World War - Royal Wolverhampton School

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The school had begun life as a Victorian orphanage and during Idle's time it was a charitable foundation solely dedicated to the welfare of orphans and semi-orphans. Its pupils, who were mainly the children of dead English soldiers, still referred to it as the 'Ophney'.

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"It was a physically abusive, bullying, harsh environment for a kid to grow up in," Idle is quoted as saying, "I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority."{{ref|McCabe}} All this turned out to be the perfect training for his future career.

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Idle stated that the two things that made his life bearable were listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bedclothes and watching the local football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers. Despite this he disliked other sports and would sneak out of school every Thursday afternoon to go to the local cinema. He was eventually caught watching the X-rated BUtterfield 8 and was stripped of his prefectship, even though by that time he was headboy. Idle had already refused to be the senior boy in the school cadet force as he was a keen CND supporter and had been on the Aldermaston march.

Related Topics:
Radio Luxembourg - Wolverhampton Wanderers - BUtterfield 8 - CND - Aldermaston

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Idle maintains that there was little to do at school and boredom drove him to work hard. He consequentally won a place at Cambridge, where he met other members of the groundbreaking British comedy team Monty Python. Unlike the other Pythons, who wrote in pairs (Cleese/Chapman and Palin/Jones), Idle wrote alone. His work was often closely associated with long, complex speeches or catchy one-liners. Amongst the many Python sketches written by Idle is the "Nudge Nudge Wink Wink" sketch, the title of which has become a catchphrase.

Related Topics:
Cambridge - British - Monty Python - Cleese - Chapman - Palin - Jones - Nudge Nudge Wink Wink - Catchphrase

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