After dropping out of college at the age of 17, he stole a family friend's credit card and spent three months in prison. He enrolled at City College in Norwich, aiming to study hard enough to earn admission to Cambridge University. He succeeded, earning a scholarship to Queens' College.
He was a member of the Cambridge Footlights and featured on University Challenge while at Cambridge. Stephen Fry's television career began with "The Cellar Tapes" in 1982. Hugh Laurie, Tony Slattery, and Emma Thompson also appeared in the episode.
The BBC quickly gave Fry and Laurie their own program, "The Crystal Cube." They also appeared in "The Young Ones," a Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson film, as well as Ben Elton's "Happy Families." The BBC commissioned the sketch show "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" in 1986. Between 1986 and 1995, the series ran for four seasons.
During that time, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie both performed in the comedy series "Blackadder," which starred Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson. Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry collaborated again on "Jeeves and Wooster," a series of adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse's books. Stephen Fry got the part of Professor Bellgrove in the television production of Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast" in 2000.
Johnathan Rhys Meyers and Christopher Lee also appeared in the series. Stephen Fry began hosting the panel program "QI" in 2003, a tremendously successful show that featured Alan Davies as a permanent panelist. Stephen Fry has also hosted a number of documentaries, including "The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive" in 2006 and "HIV and Me" in 2007.
He was also featured in the BBC genealogy show "Who Do You Think You Are?" which tracked his Slovak Jewish ancestors. Fry appeared in "Last Chance to See" alongside Mark Carwardine in 2009 to honor Carwardine's prior work with author Douglas Adams. As executive producer of the ITV1 series "Kingdom," Fry was in charge.
Hermione Norris, Karl Davies, and Phyllida Law featured in the program, which aired from 2007 to 2009. In the 1980s, Stephen Fry acted in a variety of films, including "The Good Father" and John Cleese's "A Fish Called Wanda." He appeared in Kenneth Branagh's "Friends" in 1992. He played Oscar Wilde in "Wilde" two years later.
He later appeared as a detective in Robert Altman's "Gosford Park," alongside Michael Gambon, Richard E. Grant, Maggie Smith, and Helen Mirren. Fry made his directorial debut with "Bright Young Things," an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "Vile Bodies," in 2003. Emily Mortimer, Michael Sheen, and James McAvoy appeared in the picture.
Stephen Fry played Gordon Deitrich in the 2005 film "V for Vendetta." Fry co-starred with Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's cinematic adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland" in 2009.
Stephen Fry has also had a great career, yet one episode in particular stands out: his abrupt exit from Simon Gray's 1995 play "Cell Mates." Fry was missing for three days and then blamed it on stage anxiety. He has also written a number of works of fiction and nonfiction. "The Liar," his first novel, was released in 1993.
"Making History," "The Star's Tennis Balls," and "The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within" are among his other works. He presently contributes a technology piece to the Saturday Guardian.
He is a fan of the social networking site Twitter and claimed in 2010 that he was disconnecting from the outer world in order to write a second book of his autobiography.
Fry most recently starred in "That Sugar Film," a documentary that tries to demonstrate how considered healthy items, such as reduced fat yogurt, muesli bars, drinks, and cereals, are actually packed with hidden sugars.
