Cleese was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, the only child of Reginald Francis Cleese (1893-1972), an insurance salesman, and his wife Muriel Evelyn (nee Cross; 1899-2000). His family's surname was originally Cheese, but his father had thought it was embarrassing and changed it when he enlisted in the Army during the First World War. As a child, Cleese supported Bristol City FC and Somerset County Cricket Club. Cleese was educated at St Peter's Preparatory School, where he received a prize for English and did well at cricket and boxing.

Cleese achieved greater prominence in the United Kingdom as the neurotic hotel manager Basil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, which he co-wrote with his wife Connie Booth. The series won three BAFTA awards when produced and in 2000, it topped the British Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. The series also featured Prunella Scales as Basil's acerbic wife Sybil, Andrew Sachs as the much abused Spanish waiter Manuel ("... he's from Barcelona"), and Booth as waitress Polly, the series' voice of sanity. Cleese based Basil Fawlty on a real person, Donald Sinclair, whom he had encountered in 1970 while the Monty Python team were staying at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay while filming inserts for their television series. Reportedly, Cleese was inspired by Sinclair's mantra, "I could run this hotel just fine if it weren't for the guests." He later described Sinclair as "the most wonderfully rude man I have ever met," although Sinclair's widow has said her husband was totally misrepresented in the series. During the Pythons' stay, Sinclair allegedly threw Idle's briefcase out of the hotel "in case it contained a bomb," complained about Gilliam's "American" table manners, and threw a bus timetable at another guest after they dared to ask the time of the next bus to town.  The first series was screened from 19 September 1975 on BBC 2, initially to poor reviews, but gained momentum when repeated on BBC 1 the following year. Despite this, a second series did not air until 1979, by which time Cleese's marriage to Booth had ended, but they revived their collaboration for the second series. Fawlty Towers consisted of only twelve episodes; Cleese and Booth both maintain that this was to avoid compromising the quality of the series.  In December 1977, Cleese appeared as a guest star on The Muppet Show. Cleese was a fan of the show and co-wrote much of the episode. Cleese also made a cameo appearance in their 1981 film The Great Muppet Caper.  Cleese won the TV Times award for Funniest Man on TV - 1978-79.

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