Happy Birthday to Eric Idle, who turns 75 today. Member of the groundbreaking Monty Python comedy troupe and author of the hit Broadway musical Spamalot, the actor, singer-songwriting musician, and author was bullied throughout his school year, which he called the perfect comic training ground. Idle studied English at Cambridge University a year behind future fellow-Pythons Graham Chapman and John Cleese. WATCH him and John Cleese interview each other on stage 3 years ago… (1943)
A competent guitarist, Idle composed many of the group’s most famous musical numbers, most notably “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life“
(Watch Idle’s unique interview of Cleese who had a new book —Funny bits start at 7:05 and 18:50)
(Photo by VTscapes-Tom E Canavan, CC)
MORE Good News on this Date:
- The Republic of Switzerland was established (1798)
- The Knights of Columbus was founded by a Catholic priest to encourage benevolence and racial tolerance among its members (1882)
- Turkey (a nation of Muslims) officially recognized Israel (1949)
- Residents of Washington, D.C. were finally given the right to vote in US presidential elections, with the adoption of the Twenty-third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1961)
- Vietnam began celebrating Veterans’ Day (1973)
- Led Zeppelin saw all six of their albums in the US Top 100 chart in the same week, including their newest album Physical Graffiti at No.1—certified 16 times Platinum (1975)
- Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of…
