In the 1980s he shared a house in London with Hugh Laurie. They needed some plastering done. The plasterers turned out to be Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson, who were inspired by Fry and Laurie to go into comedy.
His very recognisable crooked nose is the result of breaking it in a fall in the school playground when he was six years old.
Described as "Deeply dippy for all things digital", he 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.
He has been very open about suffering from bipolar disorder.
He has spoken openly about his struggle with depression and has attempted suicide.
For many years he was a regular guest on the BBC quiz Have I Got News for You (1990), but it is said that he now refuses to appear as a protest against the dismissal of his friend and former host Angus Deayton.
When in London, Fry uses his own black cab for convenience of transport.
A close friend of the writer and Cambridge graduate Douglas Adams. He 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'. However, he refuses to explain the reason at length, or will act as if the microphone has magically failed, as if the Universe itself were preventing him from explaining. After Adams's untimely death in 2001, he 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.
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 wonderful use of the English language.
He speaks basic German, French and Latin.
He flies his own classic biplane.
Together with Nick Green, he co-founded the Bear Rescue Foundation, a charity dedicated to rescuing and feeding bears in distress.
He narrated the audiobook versions (British editions) of J. K. Rowling's hugely popular Harry Potter series.
He is regarded in the United Kingdom as 'Britain's Best-Loved Teddy Bear', and is himself a passionate teddy bear collector.
He is the godfather of Hugh Laurie and Jo Green's three children.
As part of New Zealand Internet Blackout Week, he blacked out his website to protest the controversial New Zealand 'Section 92A' law, which would cause ISPs to disconnect users accused of copyright infringement.
He was one of the guests at the wedding of King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
He served as best man at his friend Hugh Laurie and Jo Green's wedding in 1989.
He holds the record for saying 'fuck' the most times in a single live television broadcast.
Despite his fame and charitable efforts, Stephen Fry has been quite open and honest about the details of his less respectable past, such as a short prison stay for credit card fraud and being addicted to 'coke' (cocaine) for 15 years. In his latest autobiography, he offers a list of the places where he indulged his illegal drug habit on their premises and to whose owners he offers his deepest apologies; a few of the places on that list were: Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, the Houses of Parliament, BBC Headquarters, ITV Headquarters and various military bases and headquarters.
He was a member of Cambridge Footlights and in 1981, together with 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.
He was nominated for Broadway's 1987 Tony Award as one of several writers, including the late L. Arthur Rose and Douglas Furber as well as fellow colleague Mike Ockrent, for Best Book (Musical) for "Me and My Girl."
He is a cricket fan, a Sherlockian and a founding member of the Groucho Club (Soho).
He was a good friend of Carrie Fisher.
His favourite actresses are Luise Rainer, Katharine Hepburn, Meryl Streep and Sally Field.
Fry ardently supports the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece.
He won the 1998 Sidewise Award for Alternate History with his novel Making History.
He is a snooker fan and attends the final at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield every year.
In 2008 he was ranked 44th on the Telegraph's list of "the 100 most powerful people in British culture".
He has very wide-ranging musical tastes; his particular favourites 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 their 40th anniversary reunion shows at the Astoria in London. He is also a fan of the progressive rock group Jethro Tull.
His maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Surany, now in Slovakia. His father's family is English.
He was a friend of the actor John Mills.
He became rector of the University of Dundee and was awarded an honorary doctorate from that institution (July 1995).
In February 2008, he began providing Stephen Fry's Podgrams: free podcasts about his adventures, available through his official website.
He played Irish writer and playwright Oscar Wilde in both Ned Blessing: The Story of My Life and Times (1993) and Wilde (1997).
He has an older brother named Roger and a younger sister named Jo Foster (his manager), who is 7 years old.
He hosted the British Oscars (BAFTAs) in 2001 and 2002, his two most successful years.
He is a Macintosh fanatic, a Usenet lurker, and an Internet/WWW enthusiast.
He made the Independent on Sunday 2006 Pink List (a list of the most influential gay men and women). He fell from 21 to 23.
He is extremely liberal politically and anti-Brexit.
He is the son of Marianne Fry and physicist/inventor Alan Fry.
He is related to the British athlete, politician and polymath C. B. Fry.
In 2019, he stated that he opposed Israel hosting the Eurovision Song Contest due to the conflict with Palestine, in a petition organized by Roger Waters of Pink Floyd that prog-rock legend Peter Gabriel also supported. Fry signed a rival petition accusing Waters's petition of attacking the "spirit of togetherness".
In one episode of QI, one of the panelists asked Jo Brand questions 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 this point Fry joked, "What a loss to the profession you were!"
On Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (2001) (on a night when Tom Cruise was another guest), he mentioned that he had been offered a role in the film Valkyrie (2008).
In 2009 he earned £100,000 from a Marks & Spencer TV commercial.
He appeared in a special celebrity edition of Blankety Blank on The Prince's Trust's 30th Birthday: Live broadcast. He won against contestant Chantelle Houghton.
He made a 'breakthrough' record for popular You-Tube vlogger Charlie Mcdonnell (also known as Charlie very cool).
He is very fond of old British TV themes.
He supports Norwich City Football Club, regularly attends matches (as much as his schedule allows) and sits on the board.
His mother is Ashkenazi Jewish (her family is originally from Hungary and Slovakia).
He was awarded a Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the 2025 King's New Year Honours for his services to Mental Health Awareness, the Environment and Charity.
He is President and Vice President of Fauna & Flora International, and Mind, in London, England.