Connie Booth

Connie Booth (born 1939/40[1] or 1941[2][3] or 1944)[4] is an American-born writer, actress, comedian and psychotherapist based in Britain. She has appeared in several British television programmes and films, including her role as Polly Sherman on BBC2's Fawlty Towers, which she co-wrote with her then-husband John Cleese.

Connie Booth
Born	Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Writer, actress, comedian, psychotherapist
Years active	1968–1995
Spouse(s)	John Cleese ​ ( m. 1968; div. 1978) John Lahr ( m. 2000)
Children	1

For 30 years Booth declined to talk about Fawlty Towers until she agreed to participate in a documentary about the series for the digital channel Gold in 2009.[5]

Early life

Booth's father was a Wall Street stockbroker and her mother an actress. They moved to New York State after Connie's birth in Indianapolis, Indiana.[4][6] Booth entered acting and worked as a Broadway understudy and waitress, meeting John Cleese while he was working in New York City.[6] She married Cleese on February 20, 1968.[7]

Acting career

Booth secured parts in episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–74) and in the Python films And Now for Something Completely Different (1971) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975, as a woman accused of being a witch). She also appeared in How to Irritate People (1968), a pre-Monty Python film starring Cleese and other future Monty Python members; a short film titled Romance with a Double Bass (1974) adapted by Cleese from a short story by Anton Chekhov; and The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977), Cleese's Sherlock Holmes spoof, as Mrs. Hudson.

Booth and Cleese went on to write and co-star in Fawlty Towers (1975 and 1979), in which she played waitress and chambermaid Polly.

Booth played various roles on British television, including Sophie in Dickens of London (1976), Mrs. Errol in a BBC adaptation of Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980) and Miss March in a dramatisation of Edith Wharton's The Buccaneers (1995). She also starred in the lead role of a drama called The Story of Ruth (1981), in which she played the role of the schizophrenic daughter of an abusive father, for which she received critical acclaim. In 1994, she played a supporting role in "The Culex Experiment", an episode of the children's science fiction TV series The Tomorrow People.

She also had a stage career, primarily in the London theatre, appearing in 10 productions from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s,[8] notably starring with Sir John Mills in the 1983-1984 West End production of Little Lies at Wyndham's Theatre.

Psychotherapy career

Booth ended her acting career in 1995.[6] After studying for five years at London University,[4] she began a career as a psychotherapist, registered with the British Psychoanalytic Council.[4][6][9]

Personal life

In 1971, Booth and Cleese had a daughter, Cynthia,[4] who appeared alongside her father in the films A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. Booth and Cleese divorced in 1978.[1] With Cleese, Booth wrote the scripts for and co-starred in both series of Fawlty Towers, even though the two were actually divorced before the second series was finished and aired. Booth's daughter Cynthia married screenwriter Ed Solomon in 1995.[10][11]

Booth married John Lahr, author and former New Yorker senior drama critic, in 2000. They live in north London.[6]

Selected filmography and theatrical appearances

Television

Year	Show	Role	Notes
1968	How to Irritate People	Various characters	Television film
1969–1974	Monty Python's Flying Circus	Various characters
1972	Dickens of London	Sophie
1975, 1979	Fawlty Towers	Polly Sherman	Also co-creator and writer
1980	Why Didn't They Ask Evans	Sylvia Bassington-ffrench	Television film
1982	The Deadly Game	Helen Trapp	Television film
1983	The Hound of the Baskervilles	Laura Lyons	Television film
1985	Past Caring	Linda	Television film
1987	The Return of Sherlock Holmes	Violet Morstan	Television film
1994	The Tomorrow People	Doctor Lucy Connoe	Episode: "The Culex Experiment"
1995	The Buccaneers	Miss March

Film

Year	Show	Role	Notes
1971	And Now for Something Completely Different	Various characters
1974	Romance with a Double Bass	Princess Costanza
1975	Monty Python and the Holy Grail	The Witch
1977	The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It	Mrs Hudson / Francine Moriarty
1980	Little Lord Fauntleroy	Mrs Errol
1981	The Story of Ruth	Ruth
1987	84 Charing Cross Road	the Lady from Delaware
1988	High Spirits	Marge
1988	Hawks	Nurse Jarvis
1991	American Friends	Caroline Hartley
1993	Leon the Pig Farmer	Yvonne Chadwick

Theatre[12]

Year	Play	Role	Theatre
1973-1974	Design for Living	Helen Carver	Phoenix Theatre, London
1977	The Glass Menagerie		Cambridge Arts Theatre
1982-1983	Little Lies	Agatha Posket	Wyndham's Theatre
1984	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof		Royal Exchange Theatre
1985-1986	Edmond		Royal Court Theatre
1986	The Women (play)	Mary	National Theatre Studio, Royal National Theatre
1988	An Enemy of the People	Katrine Stockmann	Young Vic
1990-1991	The Manchurian Candidate	Eugenie Cheyney	New Vic Theatre
1991-1992	It's Ralph		Harold Pinter Theatre
1992-1993	Under the Stars		Greenwich Theatre

References

1. "Divorce for Cleese". The Glasgow Herald. September 9, 1978. p. 5. Retrieved November 16, 2010.
2. Walker, John (2 June 2003). Halliwell's Who's Who in the Movies: 3rd edition. London: HarperCollins, p.58. ISBN 0-00-715085-7.
3. McFarlane, Brian (May 16, 2016). The Encyclopedia of British Film: Fourth edition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9781526111968 – via Google Books.
4. Smith, Sean. "Don't mention the classic comedy series". Camden New Journal. London Borough of Camden. Archived from the original on January 20, 2004.
5. Parker, Robin (March 23, 2009). "Gold to reopen Fawlty Towers". Broadcastnow. Archived from the original on March 26, 2009. Retrieved March 23, 2009.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
6. Milmo, Cahal (May 25, 2007). "Life after Polly: Connie Booth (a case of Fawlty memory syndrome)". The Independent. London, England: Independent Print, Ltd. Archived from the original on May 2, 2008. Retrieved September 8, 2011.
7. "John Cleese Biography (1939–)". FilmReference.com. Retrieved November 21, 2013.
8. "Theatricalia: People: Connie Booth".
9. "Fawlty Towers: Where are they now?". UKTV Gold. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved November 21, 2013.
10. Cate, Hans ten (February 12, 1997). "NEWS 1997_02_12 – John Cleese Shoots Daughter Cynthia". Daily Llama. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
11. "THE SOCIAL SCENE – A Cleese Wedding Held Away From the 'Fawlty' Line / British comedian's daughter marries in the Napa Valley". SFGate. September 18, 1995. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
12. "Theatricalia: People: Connie Booth".

External links

• Connie Booth at the British Film Institute
• Connie Booth on IMDb
• BBC Comedy Guide entry