ACTOR · BORN 1957
Stephen Fry
- Born
- 24 August 1957, Hampstead, London, England, UK
- Known for
- V for Vendetta (2006), The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014), Alice in Wonderland (2010), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
50 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
All facts (50)
- #001
Stephen Fry's highly recognisable crooked nose is the result of a fall in the school playground when he was six years old.
- #002
Described as "deeply dippy for all things digital", Stephen Fry claims to have owned the second Apple Macintosh sold in the United Kingdom (after his friend Douglas Adams) and says he has never encountered a smartphone he did not buy.
- #003
Stephen Fry has been very open about suffering from bipolar disorder.
- #004
Stephen Fry has spoken openly about his struggle with depression and has attempted suicide.
- #005
For many years Stephen Fry was a regular guest on the BBC quiz Have I Got News for You (1990), but he is now said to refuse to appear as a protest against the dismissal of his friend and former host Angus Deayton.
- #006
While in London, Stephen Fry uses his own black cab for convenience of transport.
- #007
Stephen Fry's close friend and fellow Cambridge graduate was the writer Douglas Adams. Fry claims to know why Adams chose the number "42" as the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything in his novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but he refuses to explain it at length, or else he will act as if the microphone has magically failed, as though the Universe itself were preventing him from explaining. After Adams's untimely death in 2001, Fry was cast as the Narrator in the film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), taking over the role from the late Peter Jones.
- #008
A book titled Tish and Pish: How to Be of a Speakingness Like Stephen Fry (by Stewart Ferris) was recently published in the United Kingdom. It is a witty tribute to Stephen's excellent use of the English language.
- #009
Stephen Fry speaks basic German, French and Latin.
- #010
Stephen Fry flies his own classic biplane.
- #011
Together with Nick Green, Stephen Fry co-founded the Bear Rescue Foundation, a charity dedicated to rescuing and feeding bears in distress.
- #012
Stephen Fry narrated the audiobook versions (British editions) of J. K. Rowling's hugely popular Harry Potter series.
- #013
Stephen Fry is regarded in the United Kingdom as "Britain's Best-Loved Teddy Bear" and is himself a passionate collector of teddy bears.
- #014
Stephen Fry is the godfather of Hugh Laurie and Jo Green's three children.
- #015
As part of New Zealand's Internet Blackout Week, Stephen Fry blacked out his website to protest the controversial New Zealand "Section 92A" law, which would have forced ISPs to disconnect users accused of copyright infringement.
- #016
Stephen Fry was one of the guests at the wedding of King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
- #017
Stephen Fry served as best man at the 1989 wedding of his friend Hugh Laurie and Jo Green.
- #018
Stephen Fry holds the record for saying "fuck" the most times in a single live television broadcast.
- #019
Despite his fame and charitable efforts, Stephen Fry has been quite open and honest about the less respectable details of his past, such as a short prison stay for credit card fraud and a 15-year addiction to "coke" (cocaine). In his latest autobiography he offers a list of places whose facilities he took advantage of to indulge his illegal drug habit, for which he gives their owners his deepest apologies; among the places on the list were Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, the Houses of Parliament, BBC headquarters, ITV headquarters and various military bases and headquarters.
- #020
Stephen Fry was a member of Cambridge Footlights and in 1981, alongside Hugh Laurie, Tony Slattery, Emma Thompson, Penny Dwyer and Paul Shearer, became the first winner of the Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
- #021
He was nominated for a 1987 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for "Me and My Girl," as one of several writers that included the late L. Arthur Rose and Douglas Furber as well as his colleague Mike Ockrent.
- #022
He is a cricket fan, a Sherlockian and a founding member of the Groucho Club in Soho.
- #023
He was a close friend of Carrie Fisher.
- #024
His favorite actresses are Luise Rainer, Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep and Sally Field.
- #025
Fry ardently supports the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece.
- #026
He won the 1998 Sidewise Award for Alternate History for his novel Making History.
- #027
He is a snooker fan and attends the final at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield every year.
- #028
In 2008 he was ranked 44th on the Telegraph's list of "the 100 most powerful people in British culture."
- #029
He has very wide-ranging musical tastes; his particular favorites are Richard Wagner, Led Zeppelin and ABBA. He is a great fan of the British comedy rock group The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (best known for their 1968 hit "I'm the Urban Spaceman") and on 28 January 2006 joined Adrian Edmondson, Paul Merton and Phill Jupitus at the band's 40th anniversary reunion shows at the Astoria in London. He is also a fan of the progressive rock group Jethro Tull.
- #030
He was a friend of the actor John Mills.
- #031
He became rector of the University of Dundee and received an honorary doctorate from that institution in July 1995.
- #032
In February 2008 he began offering Stephen Fry's Podgrams: free podcasts about his adventures, available through his official website.
- #033
He played the Irish writer and playwright Oscar Wilde in both Ned Blessing: The Story of My Life and Times (1993) and Wilde (1997).
- #034
He has an older brother named Roger and a younger sister, Jo Foster (his manager), who is 7 years younger.
- #035
He hosted the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards in 2001 and 2002, his two most successful years.
- #036
He is a Macintosh enthusiast, a Usenet lurker and an Internet/WWW devotee.
- #037
He fell in the Independent on Sunday's 2006 Pink List (a list of the most influential gay men and women), dropping from 21st to 23rd.
- #038
Politically he is extremely liberal and anti-Brexit.
- #039
Stephen Fry is the son of Marianne Fry and the physicist and inventor Alan Fry.
- #040
Stephen Fry is related to the English sportsman, politician and polymath C. B. Fry.
- #041
In 2019, Stephen Fry stated that he opposed Israel hosting the Eurovision Song Contest because of the conflict with Palestine, joining a petition organised by Pink Floyd's Roger Waters that was also backed by prog-rock legend Peter Gabriel. Fry signed a rival petition that accused Waters's petition of attacking the "spirit of togetherness".
- #042
On an episode of QI, one of the panellists asked Jo Brand about her previous job as a psychiatric nurse, referring to the topic at hand, and asked, "If someone had said to you they were God, what would you have done?" Jo Brand laughed and said, "I probably would have punched him to the floor!" At that point Fry joked, "What a loss to the profession you were!"
- #043
On Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (2001), on a night when Tom Cruise was another guest, Stephen Fry mentioned that he had been offered a role in the film Valkyrie (2008).
- #044
In 2009, Stephen Fry earned £100,000 from a Marks & Spencer TV commercial.
- #045
Stephen Fry took part in a special celebrity edition of Blankety Blank on The Prince's Trust's 30th Birthday: Live broadcast. He won against contestant Chantelle Houghton.
- #046
Stephen Fry recorded a "shout-out" for the popular YouTube vlogger Charlie McDonnell (also known as Charlieissocoollike).
- #047
Stephen Fry is very fond of old British TV themes.
- #048
Stephen Fry supports Norwich City Football Club, regularly attends matches (as far as his schedule allows) and sits on the board.
- #049
Stephen Fry's mother is Ashkenazi Jewish (her family originally came from Hungary and Slovakia).
- #050
Stephen Fry was appointed a Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2025 King's New Year Honours for services to mental health awareness, the environment and charity.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
Sources for the entries on this page
- IMDb IMDb
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