British comedy legend John Cleese returns this week in Clifford the Big Red Dog, the comedy movie based on Norman Bridwell's beloved book series that premieres Wednesday (November 10) on Paramount+. Cleese is well known for co-founding the innovative Monty Python comedy troupe and co-writing iconic sitcom Fawlty Towers – as well as for his appearances in everything from Will & Grace to the Bond films – but here are some things you might not know about the 82-year-old creative.
1. His family name was originally Cheese – yes, really.
According to The Daily Telegraph, Cleese's father Reginald changed his name from Cheese to Cleese to avoid being teased when he signed up to fight in World War I.
2. He honed his performing skills at the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club.
In 1962, Cleese served as registrar for the famous amateur theatrical club, whose list of alumni also includes Olivia Colman, Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Miriam Margolyes, and Julian Fellowes. 
3. When Monty Python's Flying Circus was commissioned by the BBC in 1969, Cleese's father still wasn't convinced that comedy was the best career path for him.
Cleese writes in his memoir So, Anyway... that his father wrote him a letter at this time advising him to apply for an HR job at British department store chain Marks & Spencer.
4. He believes his difficult relationship with his mother Muriel, who lived to the age of 101, "vastly complicated my relationship with women for years."
"I was 35 before I was properly able to be myself with a woman of my own age," Cleese told The Daily Telegraph. "I went to a single-sex prep school, single-sex public school, there were three female students out of 200 in the law lectures at Cambridge. I just didn’t know how to talk to them. Add to that there was a sort of unconscious fear that women seemed, because of my mother, to be these unpredictable people who could become very excited or angry about things that you didn’t really understand.”
5. In the early 1990s, he starred in a series of anti-smoking PSAs for the U.K. Health Education Authority.
As you’ll see below, Cleese definitely brings his trademark black humor to proceedings.6. He turned down a CBE honor from Queen Elizabeth II.
According to The Independent, Cleese thinks the CBE title – which stands for Commander of the British Empire – is "silly" because there's no such thing as the British Empire any more.
7. He also turned down a place in the U.K.'s House of Lords, which would have made him "Lord Cleese."
Cleese told The Daily Telegraph that he was offered the prestigious honor in 1999 by Paddy Ashdown, then-leader of British political party the Liberal Democrats.  "Paddy was going to offer me one when he ceased to be leader of the Lib Dems, for political services – not because I was such a wonderful human being – and because I'd helped them a lot," he said. "But I realized this involved being in England in the winter and I thought that was too much of a price to pay."
8. He has a species of lemur named after him.
Native to Madagascar, the Cleese's Woolly Lemur was so named because he shone a spotlight on the animals in his TV documentary Operation Lemur with John Cleese and the zoo-themed comedy movie Fierce Creatures. "I just like the little creatures. They’re not very bright, but they’re very, very sweet,” Cleese told PennLive recently. "And a lovely Swiss guy said he discovered a new species of lemur, and could it be named after me? I’ve never been so flattered in my life."
9. He once insulted Taylor Swift's cat.
Jokingly, though, during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show.10. In 2005, he offered fans the chance to buy a piece of his colon.
"Proceeds from the sale will be divided between JC and the very nice surgeon," Cleese wrote on his website at the time, according to Entertainment Weekly. Something tells us this offer might have been slightly tongue-in-cheek...
Have we missed out something interesting about John Cleese?