“had these moronic views that were expressed with extraordinary force”
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Michael Palin
Sir Michael Edward Palin is an English actor, comedian, writer, and television presenter. He was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. He received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2013 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2019.
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entertainment · English actor (born 1943) · actor · comedian · screenwriter · diarist · singer · film actor · television presenter · children's writer · television actor · travel writer · also Michael Palin, Palin
Born 5 May 1943 · Q223985
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2026· 2 entries
Published video “Michael Palin - In The Philippines - UK Tour 2026”.
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2025· 5 entries
Published video “The Brand New Monty Python Papperbok”.
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Published video “Monty Python's Big Red Book”.
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Published video “Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure”.
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Published video “Out in the country - North Korea Journal Readings - Part 2”.
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Published video “Farewell to North Korea - North Korea Journal Readings - Part 3”.
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2024· 2 entries
Published video “Amazing news! ‘Palin Diaries crack the cockatoo market in Australia’”.
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Published video “Michael Palin, There And Back, The Diary Tour 2024”.
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2023· 1 entry
To make a travel documentary that was aired in 2024
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2020· 3 entries
Awarded Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2020).
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Published video “The Wonderland Challenge”.
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Published video “Lockdown Life...”.
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2019· 1 entry
Awarded Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (2019).
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2018· 2 entries
Was hired by ITN Productions to present travel documentaries commissioned by Channel 5, with journeys to North Korea and Iraq completed by 2022
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Visited North Korea, documenting his visit to the isolated country in a series broadcast on Channel 5
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2017· 1 entry
The British Library acquired Palin's archive consisting of project files relating to his work, notebooks, and personal diaries
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2016· 1 entry
It was announced that Palin was set to star alongside Adam Driver in Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
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2015· 1 entry
After helping to raise funds for the project, which greens inner city school playgrounds and provides children with food growing opportunities
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2013· 5 entries
Awarded BAFTA Fellowship (2013).
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Won Patron’s Medal (2013).
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And was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2019
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Travelled to the United States and filmed in both Maine and Pennsylvania, to write and present "Michael Palin in Wyeth World", which is about the American painter Andrew Wyeth and the people who inspired his paintings
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Palin appeared in a First World War drama titled The Wipers Times written by Ian Hislop and Nick Newman
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2008· 1 entry
Received the James Joyce Award of the Literary and Historical Society in Dublin
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2003· 1 entry
Inside the Globe Theatre a commemorative stone was placed – Palin has his own stone, to mark donors to the theatre, but it is misspelt as "Michael Pallin"
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2002· 1 entry
Virgin Trains' new £5 million high-speed Super Voyager train number 221130 was named Michael Palin – it carried his name externally and a plaque was located adjacent to the onboard shop with information on Palin and his
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2001· 1 entry
Awarded European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award (2001).
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1999· 1 entry
Released album “Jack & The Beanstalk”.
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1997· 1 entry
Palin had a small cameo role in the Australian soap opera Home and Away
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1994· 2 entries
Palin travelled through Ireland for another episode of the same series, entitled "Derry to Kerry"
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Palin narrated the English language audiobook version of Esio Trot by children's author Roald Dahl
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1993· 2 entries
Each member of Monty Python had an asteroid named after them
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Palin became Vice President of Action for Stammering Children
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1991· 1 entry
Appeared in the film American Friends, which he wrote based upon a real event in the life of his great-grandfather, a fellow at St John's College, Oxford
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1989· 1 entry
Awarded BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for A Fish Called Wanda (1989).
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1987· 1 entry
This meeting was later fictionalised in Palin's teleplay for the 1987 BBC television drama East of Ipswich.
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1984· 1 entry
Reunited with Terry Gilliam to appear in Brazil
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1982· 1 entry
Palin wrote and starred in The Missionary, co-starring Maggie Smith
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1980· 1 entry
Palin co-wrote Time Bandits with Terry Gilliam
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1974· 1 entry
The Palin/Jones team worked on Ripping Yarns, an intermittent television comedy series broadcast over three years from 1976
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1971· 1 entry
Co-wrote, with Hugh Leonard and Terence Feely, the film Percy, which depicts a penis transplant
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1969· 1 entry
Palin has three adult children: Thomas (born 1969), William (born 1970), and Rachel (born 1975); he also has four grandchildren.
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1966· 1 entry
Palin married Helen Gibbins (born October 1942), whom he first met in 1959 on holiday in Southwold in Suffolk
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1965· 1 entry
Palin became a presenter on a comedy pop show called Now
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1962· 1 entry
Palin went on to read Modern History at Brasenose College, Oxford
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1943· 2 entries
Born 1943-05-05.
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In Ranmoor, Sheffield, the second child and only son of Edward Moreton Palin (1900–1977) and Mary Rachel Lockhart (née Ovey; 1903–1990)
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