Stephen Fry

From Philosopedia

Stephen Fry (24 August 1957 - )

Fry is an English comedian, author, actor, and filmmaker

Reportedly closeted during his teenage years, Fry was asked about why he had been celibate so long. His reply,

• I suppose it all began when I came out of the womb. I looked back up at my mother and thought to myself, 'That's the last time I'm going up one of those.

Fry was born in Hampstead, London, the son of Alan Fry, an English scientist, and Marianne Neumann, an Austrian of Jewish descent. He lives in London with a long-time partner, Daniel Cohen, whom he met following a 1995 breakdown due to living with bipolar disorder and bad reviews for his performance in Cell Mates.

In his autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot, he wrote

• There are plenty of other things to be got up to in the homosexual world outside the orbit of the anal ring, but the concept that really gets the goat of the gay-hater, the idea that really spins their melon and sickens their stomach is that most terrible and terrifying of all human notions, love. That one can love another of the same gender, that is what the homophobe really cannot stand. Love in all eight tones and all five semitones of the word's full octave. Love as agape, Eros and philos; love as romance, friendship and adoration; love as infatuation, obsession and lust; love as torture, euphoria, ecstasy and oblivion (this is beginning to read like a Calvin Klein perfume catalogue); love as need, passion and desire.

For a EuroPride 2006 programme, celebrity performers at the star-studded Albert Hallshow were asked: "Gay rights worldwide - what would do the most good?" His response,

• An end to religion.