Professor Cleese comes to campus

Actor and Professor-at-Large John Cleese sits with arts students Chris Principe, left, and Stefan Lawrence, right, before speaking to theatre arts majors in the Center for Theatre Arts' Black Box Theatre Feb. 5. Charles Harrington/University Photography

By Franklin Crawford

Before holding court for media in his Statler Hotel suite last Friday, John Cleese burned a stick of pungent medicinal incense, part of a therapeutic acupuncture regime to treat a nagging arthritic hip. Whether the hip condition is congenital, or an occupational side effect from having served as emissary for the Ministry of Silly Walks, is unclear. But the heady reek, Cleese concurred with visitors, smelled somewhat like cannabis sativa and made for a bit of unscripted comedy during his stay.

Reveling in one of his favorite roles to date, Cleese, Cornell's most recent A.D. White Professor-at-Large, advanced his reputation as comic savant and eclectic pedagogue in his first public visit here. For three days he lectured, entertained and emerged as a bit of a technophobe and surprisingly moral voice, subtly advocating meditation as a prerequisite for sound mental hygiene in an insane world.

Cleese delivered his first student lecture Thursday in Rockefeller Hall to psychology and business majors. Titled "Hare-Brain Tortoise Mind," the talk was based on a work of English psychologist and author Guy Claxton.

Cleese entered Schwartz Hall in a business suit, recognizable as the poker faced but slightly dotty headmaster he has caricatured in work with Monty Python's Flying Circus. But there the resemblance ended, as Cleese led a talk in which he encouraged students to cultivate their intuitive thought processes.

"I was pleasantly surprised that he can tackle a quite serious topic substantively," said John P. Wolff, a student in the Johnson Graduate School of Management, who attended Thursday's lecture. "Like any good professor, he was entertaining and engaging, and it was interesting to get his unique perspective on life's more basic questions."

For those unfamiliar with Cleese's intellectual interests, the lecture revealed his fascination with psychology and human development.

"If my biology [training] had been better at school, I'd almost certainly would have become an academic psychologist of some type and, I think, had a very, very happy career," he told the Chronicle Friday.

Cleese's diverse background and his skills as an educator made him a very attractive candidate for professor-at-large, said Steven Ceci, H.L. Carr Professor of Human Development, who co-sponsored Cleese's appointment with Joe Thomas, the N.H. Noyes Professor of Manufacturing.

"Cleese brings something for nearly everyone," Ceci said. "He is someone with that rather rare capacity to span the humanities, arts and social sciences."

Cleese received an M.A. in law from Cambridge University in 1963 and served as rector of St. Andrews University in Scotland from 1970 to 1973.

In 1972, he launched Video Arts Ltd., a management training film company. As both writer and as performer, he helped to shape the course of modern British comedy but is best known in America for his television and movie appearances with the Monty Python troupe, his "Fawlty Towers" television series and the hit movie "A Fish Called Wanda."

Cleese has co-authored two books with British psychologist Robyn Skinner, titled Families and How to Survive Them (1983) and Life and How to Survive It (1993). He is married to Alyce Faye Eichelberger, an American psychoanalyst.

On Friday night, Cleese fielded questions following a screening of "Monty Python's Parrot Sketch Not Included," at Cornell Cinema in Willard Straight Hall. On Saturday in Bailey Hall, he gave a presentation on his award-winning film, "A Fish Called Wanda" and again regaled a large crowd with views on everything from the current course of comedy to the end of civilization as we know it.

During his visit, he also conducted a master class in theater arts and met with film majors and drama students.

Cleese said the A.D. White professorship offers a forum in which to exercise one of his great strengths: curiosity.

"It gives me the chance to present ideas that I find fascinating and important -- very few of them are my own stuff, but what I'm really saying is: 'Hey, this is a thought that I find really interesting and useful, let me share it with you, what does it do for you, let's talk about it because we both might learn something. "

Cleese said he has felt constricted by his comedic career in the past. But life in America has allowed him a definitive break from that identity.

"It's much easier for me to escape from the comic label in America than it is in England. In England there's a tremendous resentment in the press ... they do not like me or anyone else to come out of the one box where you've already achieved something. Whereas in America, it just doesn't seem to be any kind of a problem. That is very liberating for me."

Cleese hopes to return to Cornell again this semester and certainly in November. He also said he would like to take some courses here during his appointment.