Graham Chapman

Graham Chapman entered the world on January 8, 1941, in Leicester, England. During the early 1960s he pursued medical studies at Cambridge, ultimately qualifying as an M.D., yet any plan to work as a doctor gave way almost immediately to a growing fascination with comedy. It was there that he first encountered the group of performers who would later form Monty Python. The BBC launched Monty Python's Flying Circus in 1969, and the program quickly became one of the most popular shows across Britain before reaching American audiences via PBS in 1975. Chapman frequently portrayed comically inept authority figures and repeatedly drew on his abandoned medical background for satirical sketches. The television series led to multiple feature films in which he took prominent parts, most notably in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Life of Brian. Alcohol initially helped him manage severe stage fright during the troupe’s early years, but what started as occasional drinks developed into full-blown alcoholism by the time filming began on Holy Grail. He overcame the addiction in 1979; while Monty Python entered stretches of indefinite inactivity, he contributed scripts to several BBC programs, appeared in the movies Odd Job (1978) and Yellowbeard (1983), spoke at universities, and joined the Dangerous Sports Club. Health problems surfaced by 1988, when doctors identified throat and spinal cancer. On October 4, 1989, Chapman died at age 48 after a stroke triggered by the disease.