Michael Palin

May 5, 1943-

Early Life:  Michael was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, and was the second child in his famiy (his sister, Angela, is six years older than him).  His father worked for a steel firm  and his mother, Mary, appeared on Saturday Night Live with him in 1984.

Education: He attended Shrewsbury, then Brasenose College, and then went on to become a history major at no less than Oxford University.   

Marriages and etc: Michael married Helen Gibbins in 1966, they were childhood sweethearts since they were sixteen (isn't that so cute???)  They has two sons: Thomas (played "Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Film" in the Holy Grail) and William, and one daughter: Rachel. 

Pre-Python Career:  His acting career began when he was five years old; he played Mrs. Cratchit in "A Christmas Carol" and fell offstage during performance.  Michael's more signifigant acting began in college, which is where he met Terry J.  who he would later write with for Python.  Once he finished college and got his degree in Modern History the next logical step was to start writing for the BBC with Terry.  The two worked on "Do Not Adjust Your Set" amongst other things, and then came Python........

Notable Sketches and Charaters: Michael is arguably the best character actor among the Pythons, there there is no doubt that he is the favorite among the ladies... despite the characters he's played.  He's been a homicidal barber who wanted to be a cross-dressing lumberjack, the slick host of "Blackmail", Ken Shabby, Bicycle Repair Man, and Cardinal Ximinez of the Spanish Inquisition (I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition....).  Of all the Pythons his roles seem to have been by far the broadest: from painfully-dull stockbrokers, to Mafia ganster Luigi Vercotti, to one of the more memorable gumbies, to (of course) the homicidal barber who wanted to be a transvestite lumberjack..   

"Cut, cut, cut, blood, spurt, artery, murder, Hitchcock, Psycho...."

Perhaps his most famous role is "the it's man".  The it's man is the scruffy looking chap who says "it's" before each episode and that made him the first person to speak on Monty Python's Flying Circus (with Graham in a close second). 

  No matter what his fans think, there is one particular sketch that he is most proud of: the fish-slapping dance.  It first appeared in season three and was only about twenty seconds long, but was pure comic genius.

"If all the work I'd ever done was going to be destroyed... I'd rather save the "Fish Slapping Dance."

Click Michael to see the Fish Slapping Dance