Fawlty connection
Cleese launches his own website
John Cleese has celebrated his 65th birthday today – by launching his own website.
He hopes to run TheJohnCleese.com like a micro-TV station, broadcasting his material without needing to deal with Hollywood executives.
Cleese also says he’s fed up of travelling from Santa Barbara ranch to work, so has set up a studio in one of the stables there.
In an introductory message on the site, he said: “If I think of a funny sketch in the morning, I write it out, my beloved assistant Gary will type it out, we put it on the Teleprompter and I read it off. I’ll be doing that two or three times a week.
“And apart from sketches and humorous stuff there’s masses of other stuff on audio; there’s going to be anecdotes, a diary in text form and a journal.
“And I’m writing my autobiography and members will get a whole chapter, which I’ll be doing every couple of weeks.
“Plus there’s all the personal stuff and the backstage stuff and photographs. If I do a movie then I’ll be there with a camera, and we’ll have our own filming of the film available on the website
Urging people to pay the $50 (£27) annual membership fee he said: “You’ll make an old man very happy – because otherwise I have to keep driving down to Los Angeles and working in someone else’s studio.
" I love it here in Santa Barbara so I would rather sit here and make the thing work like a tiny, little television studio.”
Cleese could not have the web address johncleese.com – because that’s owned by a lookalike.
Published: 27 Oct 2004
