
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, September 18, 1993                   TAG: 9309240374
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by ROBERT I. ALOTTA
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FEW CLUES ABOUT CLEESE

If one expects to know all about John Cleese, the international star who exploded on the entertainment scene as a member of the early Monty Python's Flying Circus, Jonathan Margolis' book will not fulfill your expectations.

In his preface, Margolis begins: ``If John Cleese is sure of one thing, it is that he does not want this book to exist.'' No reason is given by Cleese, but one can only imagine that the poor goof only wants a little privacy in his life. Why did Margolis do it, even after, ``with the utmost politeness [Cleese] declined to co-operate with it ... ''?

The real reasons for publication, the author admits, are that ``no one has yet written John Cleese's biography, I am an unreconstructed admirer, and, had I not undertaken it, somebody even less well-qualified that I would have tackled it.'' Margolis looks on this as a bonus because, ``I had to work harder than an `authorized' biographer might have done.'' Suffice to say, the book would have been a much better work, a more insightful one if Cleese had cooperated and the reader was able to gain more access into the mind of this comedic genius.

What do we actually learn about Cleese? Not much more than we would get from going to the library and doing a computer search of the articles written about him over the years. Basically that is what Margolis did, with a sprinkling of interviews with some of Cleese's friends who the subjected asked to be ``restrained'' in their comments. To be honest, nothing harmful is said about Cleese; nothing that he has not said about himself over the years.

Cleese is very tall and, as a result, has a desire that short people do not: he wants to be inconspicuous. Cleese, who is funny as a writer and as a performer, is less than funny as a private person. People still expect him to do the ``Minister of Silly Walks'' and he shuns it. Once, while on a television show, he was asked to do it. He thought about it a moment and walked off camera. When he returned, he informed the audience that he had just done the walk and it was well-done!

All the man wants is to be left alone to create, and this book does not help him achieve that goal. Margolis just did not get the message.

Robert I. Alotta's most recent book is ``Signposts and Settlers.''

\ ``Cleese encounters''

By Jonathan Margolis. St. Martin's. $19.95.

by CNB