Terry Jones

Terence Graham Parry Jones (1 February 1942 – 21 January 2020) was a Welsh actor, comedian, director, historian, writer and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. After graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English, Jones and writing partner Michael Palin wrote and performed for several high-profile British comedy programmes, including Do Not Adjust Your Set and The Frost Report, before creating Monty Python's Flying Circus with Cambridge graduates Graham Chapman, John Cleese, and Eric Idle and American animator-filmmaker Terry Gilliam. Jones was largely responsible for the programme's innovative, surreal structure, in which sketches flowed from one to the next without the use of punch lines. He made his directorial debut with the Python film Holy Grail, which he co-directed with Gilliam, and also directed the subsequent Python films Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life. Jones co-created and co-wrote with Palin the anthology series Ripping Yarns. He also wrote an early draft of Jim Henson's film Labyrinth and is credited with the screenplay, though quite little of his work actually remained in the final cut. Jones was a well-respected medieval historian, having written several books and presented television documentaries about the period, as well as a prolific children's book author. In 2016, Jones received a Lifetime Achievement award at the BAFTA Cymru Awards for his outstanding contribution to television and film. After living for several years with a degenerative aphasia, he gradually lost the ability to speak and died in 2020 from frontotemporal dementia. Early life Jones was born on 1 February 1942 in the seaside town of Colwyn Bay, on the north coast of Wales, the son of housewife Dilys Louisa (Newnes), and Alick George Parry-Jones, a bank clerk. The family home was named Bodchwil. As he recalled in The Pythons Autobiography by The Pythons, he was "born right bang slap in the middle of World War Two," while his father served with the Royal Air Force in Scotland. A week after he was born, his father was posted in India as a Flight Lieutenant (Temporary). His brother Nigel was two years his senior. He reunited with his father when the war ended four years later; of their first meeting at Colwyn Bay railway station he recalled: "I'd only ever been kissed by the smooth lips of a lady up until that point, so his bristly moustache was quite disturbing!" When Jones was four and a half, the family moved to Claygate, Surrey, England.