42 Facts About Terry Jones

1.

Terence Graham Parry Jones was a Welsh comedian, director, historian, actor, writer and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe.

2.

Terry 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.

3.

Terry Jones made his directorial debut with the Python film Holy Grail, which he co-directed with Gilliam, and directed the subsequent Python films Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life.

4.

Terry Jones co-created and co-wrote with Palin the anthology series Ripping Yarns.

5.

Terry Jones 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.

6.

Terry 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.

7.

In 2016, Terry Jones received a Lifetime Achievement award at the BAFTA Cymru Awards for his outstanding contribution to television and film.

8.

Terry 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, and Alick George Parry-Terry Jones, a bank clerk.

9.

Terry Jones read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, but "strayed into history".

10.

Terry Jones became interested in the medieval period through reading Chaucer as part of his English degree.

11.

Terry Jones appeared in Twice a Fortnight with Michael Palin, Graeme Garden, Bill Oddie and Jonathan Lynn, as well as the television series The Complete and Utter History of Britain.

12.

Terry Jones appeared in Do Not Adjust Your Set with Palin, Eric Idle and David Jason.

13.

Terry Jones wrote for The Frost Report and several other David Frost programmes on British television.

14.

In 2008, Terry Jones wrote the libretto for and directed the opera Evil Machines.

15.

Terry Jones directed the 2015 comedy film Absolutely Anything, about a disillusioned schoolteacher who is given the chance to do anything he wishes by a group of aliens watching from space.

16.

In 2016, Terry Jones directed Jeepers Creepers, a West End play about the life of comic Marty Feldman.

17.

Terry Jones wrote many books and screenplays, including comic works and more serious writing on medieval history.

18.

Terry Jones wrote numerous works for children, including Fantastic Stories, The Beast with a Thousand Teeth and a collection of comic verse called The Curse of the Vampire's Socks.

19.

Terry Jones was the co-creator of the animated TV series Blazing Dragons, which parodied the Arthurian legends and Middle Ages periods.

20.

Terry Jones wrote the screenplay for Labyrinth, although his draft went through several rewrites and several other writers before being filmed; consequently, much of the finished film was not actually written by Terry Jones.

21.

Terry Jones wrote books and presented television documentaries on medieval and ancient history.

22.

Chaucer's knight is often interpreted as a paragon of Christian virtue, but Terry Jones asserts that if one studies historical accounts of the battles the knight claims he was involved in, he can be interpreted as a typical mercenary and a potentially cold-blooded killer.

23.

For example, in Terry Jones' Medieval Lives he argues that the Middle Ages was a more sophisticated period than is popularly thought, and Terry Jones' Barbarians presents the cultural achievements of peoples conquered by the Roman Empire in a more positive light than Roman historians typically have, attributing the Sack of Rome in 410 AD to propaganda.

24.

Terry Jones wrote numerous columns for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer condemning the Iraq War.

25.

Terry Jones provided significant support to Unbound as they developed their publishing concept.

26.

In February 2018, Terry Jones released The Tyrant and the Squire, with Unbound.

27.

Terry Jones was a member of the Poetry Society, and his poems have appeared in Poetry Review.

28.

Terry Jones performed with the Carnival Band and appears on their 2007 CD Ringing the Changes.

29.

Terry Jones was invited by the Teatro Sao Luiz to write and direct the play, after a successful run of Contos Fantasticos, a short play based on Terry Jones' Fantastic Stories, with music by Tinoco.

30.

Terry Jones appears in two French films by Albert Dupontel: Le Createur and Enfermes dehors.

31.

In 2009, Terry Jones took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home about his Welsh family history.

32.

In July 2014, Terry Jones reunited with the other four living Pythons to perform at ten dates at the O2 Arena in London.

33.

In October 2016, Terry Jones received a standing ovation at the BAFTA Cymru Awards when he received a Lifetime Achievement award for his outstanding contribution to television and film.

34.

Terry Jones married Alison Telfer in 1970; they had two children together, Sally in 1974 and Bill in 1976.

35.

In 2009, Terry Jones left Telfer for Anna Soderstrom; she was 41 years his junior and they had been in a relationship for five years.

36.

In September 2009, Soderstrom and Terry Jones had a daughter, and in 2012 they married.

37.

Terry Jones published a number of articles on political and social commentary, principally in newspapers The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent and The Observer.

38.

In October 2006, Terry Jones was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent surgery.

39.

In 2015, Terry Jones was diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, a form of frontotemporal dementia that impairs the ability to speak and communicate.

40.

Terry Jones had first given cause for concern during the Monty Python reunion show Monty Python Live in July 2014 because of difficulties learning his lines.

41.

Terry Jones became a campaigner for awareness of, and fundraiser for research into, dementia; and donated his brain for dementia research.

42.

Terry Jones died from complications of dementia on 21 January 2020,11 days short of his 78th birthday, at his home in Highgate.