Cinema of the United Kingdom as Goldcrest, HandMade Films and Merchant Ivory Productions. Handmade Films, which was partly owned by George Harrison, was originally formed to take over the production of "Monty Python's Life of Brian", after EMI's Bernard Delfont (Lew Grade's brother) had pulled out. Handmade also bought and released the gangster drama "The Long Good Friday" (1980), produced by a Lew Grade subsidiary, after its original backers became cautious. Members of the Python team were involved in other comedies during the decade, including Terry Gilliam's fantasy films "Time Bandits" (1981) and "Brazil" (1985), and John Cleese's hit "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988), while
John Cleese as a species until 11 November 2005. John Cleese John Marwood Cleese (; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, voice actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on "The Frost Report". In the late 1960s, he co-founded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and the four Monty Python films: "And Now for Something Completely Different", "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", "Life of Brian" and "The Meaning of Life". In the mid-1970s, Cleese and his first wife, Connie