Graham Chapman Biography

Graham Arthur Chapman was an English comedian, actor, and writer best recognized as one of the six members of the surreal comedy group Monty Python. Besides performing comedy, he also played lead roles in numerous movies and television programs. Born in Leicester, Chapman was raised in Melton Mowbray by a policeman father Walter Chapman and his wife Edith Towers. He loved science as a young man and studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Medical College. However, he turned down a career as a doctor and turned towards comedy. Chapman also went on to work as a writer later on and established a successful writing partnership with John Cleese. The pair became extremely popular with their work with ‘Monty Python’ in the 1970s. The comedian eventually moved to Los Angeles where he worked in numerous American TV shows before relocating to England in the early 1980s. In his personal life, Graham Chapman was openly homosexual and a huge supporter of gay rights. He was very open about his relationship with writer David Sherlock with whom he lived for 24 years. The couple also adopted and raised a teenaged boy named John Tomiczek. A long-time alcoholic and smoker, Chapman became afflicted with tonsil and spinal cancer which eventually killed him in 1989. He was just 48 at the time of his death.