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Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English comedian, actor, author, singer, writer, and comedic composer. He was as a member of the British surreal comedy group Monty Python, a member of the The Rutles on Saturday Night Live and the author of the Broadway play, Spamalot. Idle was born in South Shields, County Durham in Harton Village, the son of Nora Barron (née Sanderson), a health visitor, and Ernest Idle. His father served in the Royal Air Force and survived World War II, only to be killed in a hitch-hiking accident on Christmas Eve 1945. His mother had difficulty coping with a... MORE

Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English comedian, actor, author, singer, writer, and comedic composer. He was as a member of the British surreal comedy group Monty Python, a member of the The Rutles on Saturday Night Live and the author of the Broadway play, Spamalot. Idle was born in South Shields, County Durham in Harton Village, the son of Nora Barron (née Sanderson), a health visitor, and Ernest Idle. His father served in the Royal Air Force and survived World War II, only to be killed in a hitch-hiking accident on Christmas Eve 1945. His mother had difficulty coping with a full-time job and raising a child, so when Eric was seven, she enrolled him into the Royal Wolverhampton School as a boarder. At this time the school was a charitable foundation dedicated to the education and maintenance of children who had lost one or both parents. Idle is quoted as saying: "It was a physically abusive, bullying, harsh environment for a kid to grow up in. I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority. Perfect training for Python." Idle stated that the two things that LESS