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Monty Python star Terry Jones dies aged 77


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Monty Python star Terry Jones dies aged 77

By Paul Sandle


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FILE PHOTO: British comedian Terry Jones smiles as he leaves The Rolls Building in central London November 30, 2012. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett//File Photo

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Terry Jones, one of the British Monty Python comedy team and director of religious satire "Life of Brian", has died at the age of 77 after a long battle with dementia, his family said on Wednesday.

 

Born in Wales in 1942, Jones was also an author, historian and poet. He had been diagnosed in 2015 with a rare form of dementia, FTD.

 

Jones was one of the creators of Monty Python's Flying Circus, the British TV show that rewrote the rules of comedy with surreal sketches, characters and catchphrases, in 1969.

 

He co-directed the team's first film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" with fellow Python Terry Gilliam, and directed the subsequent Life of Brian and "The Meaning of Life."

 

Python Michael Palin, who met Jones at Oxford University, said he was "kind, generous, supportive and passionate about living life to the full".

 

"He was far more than one of the funniest writer-performers of his generation, he was the complete Renaissance comedian - writer, director, presenter, historian, brilliant children's author, and the warmest, most wonderful company you could wish to have."

 

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FILE PHOTO: Members of British comedy troupe Monty Python (L-R) Eric Idle, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin and Terry Jones pose for a photograph during a media event in central London, June 30, 2014. REUTERS/Paul Hackett/File Photo

 

Jones' family said his work with Monty Python, books, films, television programmes, poems and other work "will live on forever, a fitting legacy to a true polymath".

 

Jones wrote comedy sketches with Palin in the 1960s for shows including "The Frost Report" and "Do Not Adjust Your Set" before the pair teamed up with Cambridge graduates Eric Idle, John Cleese, Graham Chapman - who died in 1989 - and U.S. film-maker Terry Gilliam to create Monty Python.

 

One of Jones' best-known roles was that of Brian's mother in Life of Brian released in 1979, who screeches at worshippers from an open window: "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy".

 

Another was the hugely obese Mr Creosote who explodes in a restaurant at the end of an enormous meal after eating a "wafer-thin mint".

 

Cleese said: "It feels strange that a man of so many talents and such endless enthusiasm, should have faded so gently away ..," adding, in a reference to Chapman "Two down, four to go."

 

As well as his comedy work, Jones wrote about medieval and ancient history, including a critique of Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale".

 

He made an emotional public appearance in 2016 when, just weeks after revealing his diagnosis with dementia, he received a Bafta Cymru award for his outstanding contribution to film and television, which was presented by Palin.

 

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft and Kate Holton; editing by Stephen Addison)

 

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-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-01-23
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FTD is frontotemporal lobar degeneration, the most common form of dementia for people under age 60. It represents a group of brain disorders caused by degeneration of the frontal and/or temporal lobes of the brain. FTD is also frequently referred to as frontotemporal dementia, frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), or Pick's disease.

 

I had to look it up, now you don't have to.

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Naughtius Maximus was his name. Promised me the known world he did. I was to be taken to Rome, House by the Forum. Slaves. Asses' milk. As much gold as I could eat. Then, he, having his way with me had... voom! Like a rat out of an aquaduct

 

I'm not a Roman mum, I'm a Kike! A Yid! A Hebe! A Hook-nose! I'm Kosher, Mum! I'm a Red Sea Pedestrian, and proud of it!

 

Nobody ever wrote stuff like that before or since. . RIP Terry. Very sad.

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9 hours ago, blazes said:

This sketch (with Eric Idle) always made me laugh out loud):
 

 

 

RIP...you will long be in our memories....

Eric Idle: 'She's been around a bit, eh? Been around.'

Terry Jones: ' Yes, she's travelled. She's from Purley.'

Love it!

 

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