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The Python Years: Diaries 1969 – 1979, Volume 1

Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980 – 1988, Volume 2

Travelling To Work: Diaries 1988 – 1998, Volume 3

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Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980 – 1988, Volume 2

A decade of new directions, away from television and into films. The Python collaboration comes to an end with The Meaning Of Life, but I continue to work with Terry Gilliam on Time Bandits and Brazil. I write and star in my own film, The Missionary, with Maggie Smith, and am re-united with Maggie in Alan Bennett’s A Private Function, before taking on Ken in John Cleese’s A Fish Called Wanda.

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Halfway To Hollywood, Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl, September 1980

Pythons in Hollywood. MP,Terry J, Eric I, Graham C, Terry G and John C. Behind us, the Bowl.

Halfway To Hollywood, Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl, September 1980

Halfway To Hollywood, Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl, September 1980

John rehearses his Silly Walk.

Halfway To Hollywood, Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl, September 1980

Halfway To Hollywood, Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl, September 1980

Dead Parrot sketch always went down well. Never more so than with the performers.

Halfway To Hollywood, Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl, September 1980

Halfway To Hollywood, Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl, September 1980

Disrobing after the judge’s summing up.

Halfway To Hollywood, Monty Python Live at The Hollywood Bowl, September 1980

Halfway To Hollywood, Time Bandits, Summer 1980

On the set of Time Bandits. (left to right) Neville C Thompson, Associate Producer, John Cleese (Robin Hood), George Harrison and Denis O’Brien, Executive Producers.

Halfway To Hollywood, Time Bandits, Summer 1980

Halfway To Hollywood, Time Bandits, 1981

‘I’ve got to have fruit!’ Tied to a tree with Shelley Duvall, as Vincent and Pansy in Time Bandits.

Halfway To Hollywood, Time Bandits, 1981

Halfway To Hollywood, Time Bandits, 1981

Shooting the Time Bandits’ Giant on the roof of Wembley Studios. Among those looking bored, Maggie Gilliam and Julian Doyle on camera.

Halfway To Hollywood, Time Bandits, 1981

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, 1982

Fortescue and his women. Caught between fiancée Deborah Fitzbanks (Phoebe Nicholls, left) and Lady Ames, benefactress, (Maggie Smith, right).

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, 1982

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, April 24, 1982

Nepotism at work. Rachel Palin, (centre), on the set at Finsbury Circus.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, April 24, 1982

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, 1982

Charles Fortescue, man with a Mission.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, 1982

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, May 1, 1982

‘As I wait for the clouds to clear the sun, I see our two Executive Producers emerging from the orchard’. Richard Loncraine, director, George H and Denis O’Brien on location.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, May 1, 1982

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, June 13, 1982

‘No people, no sun-oil, no deck-chairs, no poolside bars selling over-priced drinks’. Bathing in the waterfall at Shava Lodge after the Kenya shoot.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, June 13, 1982

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, October 7, 1982

Missionary publicity. Participating in a custard pie throwing contest at the Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, October 7, 1982

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, October 7, 1982

Missionary publicity. Judging in a custard pie throwing contest at the Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, October 7, 1982

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, July 1983

Playing a TV Presenter for Comic Roots. Behind me, on the left, the house in which I was born and brought up. Sheffield.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, July 1983

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, March 26, 1985

John Kelleher of HandMade (centre) and I collect our most cherished, and only, award, from the French town of Chamrousse. ‘I check in the atlas. It does exist’.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Missionary, March 26, 1985

Halfway To Hollywood, The Meaning of Life, 1982

Dad in ‘Every Sperm Is Sacred’.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Meaning of Life, 1982

Halfway To Hollywood, The Meaning of Life, August 10, 1982

Telling the children the facts of life. ‘I will say “sock” instead of “cock”…and the dastardly substitution will take place in the dubbing theatre’ Elstree Studios.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Meaning of Life, August 10, 1982

Halfway To Hollywood, The Meaning of Life, 1982

Christmas in Heaven. (left to right) Idle, Palin, Jones and friends in foreground. Chapman, Simon Jones and Jonathan Benson look on.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Meaning of Life, 1982

Halfway To Hollywood, The Meaning of Life, August 27, 1982

Jones, Gilliam, Palin, Cleese, Idle and Chapman emerge from the jungle. ‘Endless takes. Constant calls over the walkie-talkie for the Test Match score’.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Meaning of Life, August 27, 1982

Halfway To Hollywood, January 1983

The eternal dream. By a pool, with a book, somewhere hot. Kenyan holiday.

Halfway To Hollywood, January 1983

Halfway To Hollywood, Brazil, 1983

Jack Lint. The nastiest character I’ve ever played. Sadly.

Halfway To Hollywood, Brazil, 1983

Halfway To Hollywood, Brazil, 1983

Rehearsing with Terry G and Jonathan P in the lobby of Information Retrieval.

Halfway To Hollywood, Brazil, 1983

Halfway To Hollywood, Brazil, November 21, 1983

Using my heavy duty massager when Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) bursts in unexpectedly. ‘At the end of the day TG says he’s never seen me as nervous before’.

Halfway To Hollywood, Brazil, November 21, 1983

Halfway To Hollywood, Brazil, 1983

Gilliam the director with Ray Cooper, actor, musical director, gourmet, percussionist extraordinaire and all-round good bloke.

Halfway To Hollywood, Brazil, 1983

Halfway To Hollywood, January 1984

My mother crosses the Atlantic for the first and only time in her life, at the age of 80 years and 2 days. New York City.

Halfway To Hollywood, January 1984

Halfway To Hollywood, 1984

With my sister Angela, Nancy Lewis and Mum in Central Park.

Halfway To Hollywood, 1984

Halfway To Hollywood, January 21, 1984

Mum, with Angela, at the Saturday Night Live after-show party. ‘There is no question of Granny not wanting to go - in fact she stays there until four a.m.’.

Halfway To Hollywood, January 21, 1984

Halfway To Hollywood, 1984

With Laurel and Hardy in the garden. I bought them off a market stall on Canal Street, New York. Hardy’s neck broke in the plane’s luggage locker.

Halfway To Hollywood, 1984

Halfway To Hollywood 1984

Sheepish of Gospel Oak. Supporting our local City Farm.

Halfway To Hollywood 1984

Halfway To Hollywood October 27, 1984

‘Take Rachel on a mystery tour. By lucky chance there is a raising of the bridge as we are there. Watch from an abandoned little jetty upstream from the Tower’.

Halfway To Hollywood October 27, 1984

Halfway To Hollywood

Tom with Denis the cat.

Halfway To Hollywood

Halfway To Hollywood

My mother and her neighbour, Lily Pratt, outside Croft Cottage, near Southwold, Suffolk.

Halfway To Hollywood

Halfway To Hollywood

Launching a rebuilt steam-engine at the Bluebell Railway.

Halfway To Hollywood

Halfway To Hollywood

Mahendra ‘Mash’ Patel, our newsagent. Such reserves of patience and good humour that our family name for him is Mr Nice Man.

Halfway To Hollywood

Halfway To Hollywood

‘Sam Jarvis has arrived to start decorating and is extremely worried about the whereabouts of his tea bags’.

Halfway To Hollywood

Halfway To Hollywood, Summer 1984

Will and Eric in France. I’d had a Geoffrey Boycott T-shirt made for Eric as we were both slightly obsessed with the Greatest Living Yorkshireman.

Halfway To Hollywood, Summer 1984

Halfway To Hollywood

My friend Al Levinson (left) with Norman Rosten, poet laureate of Brooklyn, and like me, a champion of Al’s work.

Halfway To Hollywood

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, May 1984

With Maggie, enjoying a break from porcicide in the garden at Briargarth.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, May 1984

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, 1984

‘Kill it, Gilbert!’. MP, Betty and Maggie Smith.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, 1984

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, May 1984

Advertising bicycle clips with Alan Bennett, North Yorkshire.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, May 1984

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, June 1984

Toilet of the Stars. (left to right) Denholm Elliott, Jim Carter, MP, Pete Postlethwaite, John Normington and Richard Griffiths in the gents at The Great Western Hotel Paddington.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, June 1984

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, June 1984

With Alan and Maggie and the foot from my chiropodist’s surgery, on the set of the dance sequence after the Mayor’s dinner.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, June 1984

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function

A Private Function was the last of five films I made with George Harrison and Denis O’Brien as Executive Producers. The HandMade logo was a Gilliam design.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, November 21, 1984

Anne Gibbins, Helen’s mother, with my mother and Helen at the Private Function Royal Premiere.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Private Function, November 21, 1984

Halfway To Hollywood, September 3, 1985

This photo call at a Python video launch seems to contradict my diary entry, ‘we all come to the conclusion that zaniness after 40 isn’t possible’. The Pythons, sans Eric, and Carol Cleveland, London.

Halfway To Hollywood, September 3, 1985

Halfway To Hollywood, East of Ipswich, June 1986

Tristram Powell, director, in cap and Innes Lloyd, producer, worry about the weather, Southwold, Suffolk.

Halfway To Hollywood, East of Ipswich, June 1986

Halfway To Hollywood, East of Ipswich, 1986

Wearing my Biff T-shirt at the East of Ipswich wrap party at the Crown Hotel, Southwold.

Halfway To Hollywood, East of Ipswich, 1986

Halfway To Hollywood, March 7, 1986

‘Photographed with a bike giving views on cycling in London. Cannot pose with my own bike as the saddle’s missing'.

Halfway To Hollywood, March 7, 1986

Halfway To Hollywood, Jabberwocky, November 1986

MP, Gilliam, David Robinson of The Times, John Cartwright of the British Council, and our Russian escort Elena, on Jabberwocky visit to Moscow and Leningrad.

Halfway To Hollywood, Jabberwocky, November 1986

Halfway To Hollywood, August 1986

Will, Tom, Rachel and Helen on holiday in Majorca.

Halfway To Hollywood, August 1986

Halfway To Hollywood, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, February 1987

Joan Rivers was the only American host who ever wrote me a thank-you letter.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, February 1987

Halfway To Hollywood, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, February 1987

All-American look for the Joan Rivers show.

Halfway To Hollywood, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, February 1987

Halfway To Hollywood, 1987

Tom, Will, Helen, Granny and Rachel brave an east coast gale outside Sunset House, Southwold.

Halfway To Hollywood, 1987

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988

John C (Archie Leach) trying some unsuccessful information retrieval.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988

Ken Pile. Fan Photo.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, July 17, 1988

‘Start the day being kissed repeatedly by Jamie on the bathroom floor. Very pleasant form of acting’.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, July 17, 1988

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988

Comrades in arms. With Charles Crichton, director.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988

Comrades in arms. With Gerry Paris (the best stand-in in the world).

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988

Comrades in arms. Kevin Kline, chip abuser and friend.

Halfway To Hollywood, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988

Halfway To Hollywood, Number 27, June 23, 1988

With 90 year-old Joyce Carey, friend and muse of Nöel Coward, on the set of Number 27 ‘Apparently her skirt fell down as she stood in the rose garden. “Normally I would have laughed, but this time I was a little cross,” she commented’.

Halfway To Hollywood, Number 27, June 23, 1988

While every effort has been made to trace copyright holders of content included within this gallery, if any have inadvertently been overlooked, themichaelpalin.com will be pleased to acknowledge them.

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