Stephen Fry

Sir Stephen John Fry, born 24 August 1957, is an English actor, comedian, writer, and broadcaster. He first appeared on television in the sketch show *Alfresco* (1983–1984) and the sitcom *Blackadder* (1986–1989), but became widely known as one half of the comedy duo Fry and Laurie with Hugh Laurie. Together they starred in *A Bit of Fry & Laurie* (1989–1995) and *Jeeves and Wooster* (1990–1993). Fry hosted the panel show *QI* from 2003 to 2016, earning six BAFTA TV Award nominations. He was knighted in 2025 for his work in mental health awareness, environmental causes, and charity.

Fry’s film work includes roles in *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 voiced the Cheshire Cat in *Alice in Wonderland* (2010) and its 2016 sequel, and played the Master of Lake-town in *The Hobbit* film trilogy (2013–2014). For portraying Oscar Wilde in *Wilde* (1997), he received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor. He also hosted the BAFTA Film Awards twelve times between 2001 and 2017. Later television roles include *Kingdom* (2007–2009), *Bones* (2007–2017), and *It’s a Sin* (2021).

Fry has a strong theatre background. He adapted *Me and My Girl* (1983), which ran for eight years in the West End and then moved to Broadway, earning him a Tony nomination for Best Book of a Musical. In 2012, he played Malvolio in *Twelfth Night* at Shakespeare’s Globe; the production later transferred to the West End and then Broadway, where he was nominated for a Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Play. He played Lady Bracknell in the National Theatre’s production of *The Importance of Being Earnest* (2025–2026).

He has written and presented several documentary series, including the Emmy-winning *Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive* (2006) and the travel series *Stephen Fry in America* (2008). Fry is also a prolific writer, contributing to newspapers and magazines, and has published four novels and three autobiographies. He has narrated audiobooks for all seven *Harry Potter* novels and the *Paddington Bear* books. Since 2011, he has served as president of the mental health charity Mind. In 2006, the British public ranked him number 9 in ITV’s poll of TV’s 50 Greatest Stars.

Fry was born on 24 August 1957 in Hampstead, London, to 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 near Shillingstone and Blandford in Dorset; in the early 1800s, Samuel Fry settled in Surrey, with descendants later living in Middlesex. Fry has claimed connections to the Fry family that founded the chocolate company, John Fry (a signatory to Charles I’s death warrant), and cricketer C. B. Fry. His mother is Jewish, but he was not raised religiously. His maternal grandparents, Martin and Rosa Neumann, were Hungarian Jews who emigrated from Šurany (now in Slovakia) to the UK in 1927, settling in Bury St. Edmunds. Rosa’s parents, originally from Vienna, were deported to a Nazi ghetto in Riga and killed. His mother’s aunt and cousins were sent to Auschwitz and Stutthof and never seen again.

Fry grew up in Booton, Norfolk, after moving from Chesham, Buckinghamshire, where he attended Chesham Preparatory School. He briefly went to Cawston Primary School in Norfolk, then Stouts Hill Preparatory School in Uley, Gloucestershire, at age seven, and later Uppingham School in Rutland, where he was described as a “near-asthmatic genius.” He took O-levels at 14 in 1972, passing all except physics, but was expelled from Uppingham half a term into the sixth form. He called himself a “monstrous” child and said he was expelled for “various misdemeanours.” He was later dismissed from Paston School, a grammar school that refused to let him study A-Levels. He moved to Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, where after two years studying English, French, and History of Art, he failed his A-Levels, skipping his English and French exams. That summer, he stole a credit card from a family friend’s coat pocket after leaving a pub, planning to sleep rough. Arrested in Swindon, he spent three months in Pucklechurch Remand Centre. After release, he enrolled at City College Norwich, promising to study hard for Cambridge entrance exams. In 1977, he passed A-Levels in English (A) and French (B), an alternative O-level in the Study of Art (A), and an S-level in English (distinction). He passed Cambridge entrance exams in 1977 and was offered a scholarship at Queens’ College, Cambridge, for 1978, briefly teaching at Cundall Manor School in North Yorkshire beforehand. At Cambridge, he joined the Footlights, appeared on *University Challenge*, read English Literature, and graduated with an upper second-class BA in 1981 (later upgraded to an MA). There he also met his future comedy partner, Hugh Laurie.