Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English comedian, actor, voice actor, author, singer-songwriter, musician, writer and comedic composer. Idle was a member of the British surreal comedy group Monty Python, a member of the parody rock band The Rutles, and the author of the Broadway musical Spamalot.\n', '

Idle was born in Harton Hospital, in South Shields, County Durham, to which his mother had been evacuated from the north west of England. His mother, Norah Barron (Sanderson), was a health visitor, and his father, Ernest Idle, served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, only to be killed in a road accident while hitch-hiking home shortly after the war. Idle spent part of his childhood in Wallasey on the Wirral peninsula, and attended St George\'s Road primary school until he was nine. His mother had difficulty coping with a full-time job and bringing up a child, so when Idle was seven, she enrolled him in the Royal Wolverhampton School as a boarder. At this time, the school was a charitable foundation dedicated to the education and maintenance of children who had lost one or both parents. Idle is quoted as saying: "It was a physically abusive, bullying, harsh environment for a kid to grow up in. 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. Perfect training for Python."\n', '

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 the local cinema. Idle was eventually caught watching the X-rated film BUtterfield 8 (suitable for audiences aged 16 years and over under the contemporary film certificates) and stripped of his prefecture, though by that time he was head boy. Idle had already refused to be senior boy in the school cadet force, as he supported the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and had participated in the yearly Aldermaston March. Idle maintains that there was little to do at the school, and boredom drove him to study hard and consequently win a place at Cambridge University.\n', '

Return to Eric Idle Autograph Profile