John Cleese: I cannot be funny, I have no money

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John Cleese's dreams of turning A Fish Called Wanda into a West End hit are being hampered by his struggle to keep up divorce payments to his ex-wife.

The 68-year-old is supposed to be working on a script with his daughter Camilla to turn his 1988 comedy movie into a musical.

Cash flow problem: John Cleese

But he is not being paid to write the production and claims he is too busy doing other projects in order to meet the £1 million a year he has to give Alyce Faye Eichelberger.

The Star of Monty Python's Flying Circus and Fawl ty Towers told us: "We're still working on it. I mean, musicals take three or four years to come out. So my daughter and I are still working on the plot. I think we've got some very good ideas now but one of the problems is I can't settle down to write it until I've earned enough money to do that because there is no money being paid to me for doing it.

Otherwise you lose control of it artistically and I do still have to find £1 million a year in alimony, so I have to earn that before I get started. So I will get down to it when I've done that."

The comic reportedly agreed to waive his full royalties when he was asked by Eric Idle about turning Monty Python And The Holy Grail into a musical, because he had no idea it would be so money-spinning.

But the success of Spamalot was obviously enough to make him consider making a musical of A Fish Called Wanda - a film that he wrote.

He married third wife Eichelberger in 1992. They divorced in December and he has recently started going out with American comedienne Barbie Orr.

 

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