Monty Python's Eric Idle says he's had a 'reprieve' after cancer
Actor and comedian Eric Idle has expressed gratitude for 'every single day' after overcoming pancreatic cancer. The Monty Python star, 82, received an early diagnosis in 2019 and was successfully treated for the illness.
Now, in a heartfelt 'Letter To My Younger Self' for the Big Issue, he's once again reflected on the ordeal. "I miss a lot of people. Great people like Mike Nichols [director of The Graduate]," he wrote.
"I will find myself thinking of a funny line and thinking, you must tell Mike that. Or Jonathan Miller [a British public thinker and former comedian]. So many of my heroes have gone, like Robin Williams. I still kind of occasionally speak to Billy Connolly, but I really miss him.
"You've got to find other people, you know, because there are still other funny people you can have dinner with or play guitar with. I got lucky, because I had to, I survived pancreatic cancer. So I feel that since 2019 I've had a reprieve. So I don't know or care what people say about me, I'm lucky every single day."
Eric also looked back on some of the challenges in financing Monty Python's Life Of Brian, a film whose creators received assistance from Beatles icon George Harrison.
He said: "For a while we had no money. (Media impresario) Lew Grade read it and just went nuts. He said, 'We can't possibly make this'. I went to America to find money.
"I had been talking to George Harrison, who was a huge fan, and he said, 'I'll phone you in the morning, don't worry'. And I thought, well, nobody's got four and a half million dollars.
"But finally, when everybody turned us down, there was a call from him saying, 'I've got you the money'. He had mortgaged his house and his business and raised the cash and put it all on a Python film. The most extraordinary thing to do."
Eric, alongside John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam, and Sir Michael Palin, were the comedic geniuses behind the revolutionary sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus.
The series was a massive success, with 45 episodes produced from 1969 to 1974. It also gave rise to five films, including the 1975 classic 'The Holy Grail', which later inspired the hit musical 'Spamalot', penned by Eric himself.
For more insights, catch the full interview with Eric Idle in the Big Issue, available now.
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