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This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. The reason given is: entire paragraphs without attribution (not ones about appearances in films and tvs shows - easily verified by imdb - but about education and other career assertions). Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (August 2012)

Eric Idle (born 29 March 1943) is an English comedian, actor, author, singer, writer and comedic composer. Idle was a member of the British surreal comedy group Monty Python, a member of the Rutles on Saturday Night Live, and the author of the Broadway musical Spamalot.

Early life and education [edit]
Idle was born in South Shields, County Durham, U.K., in Harton village, which is now part of Tyne and Wear. His mother, Nora Barron (née Sanderson), was a health visitor, and his father, Ernest Idle, served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, only to be killed in a hitch-hiking accident shortly after the war. His mother had difficulty coping with a full-time job and bringing up a child so, when Idle was seven, she enrolled him in the Royal Wolverhampton School as a boarder. At this time the school was a charitable foundation dedicated to the education and maintenance of children who had lost one or both parents. Idle is quoted as saying: "It was a physically abusive, bullying, harsh environment for a kid to grow up in. I got used to dealing with groups of boys and getting on with life in unpleasant circumstances and being smart and funny and subversive at the expense of authority. Perfect training for Python."
Idle stated that the two things that made his life bearable were listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bedclothes and watching the local football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers. Despite this, he disliked other sports and would sneak out of school every Thursday afternoon to the local cinema. Idle was eventually caught watching the X-rated film BUtterfield 8 and stripped of his prefecture, even though by that time he was head boy. Idle had already refused to be senior boy in the school cadet force, as he supported the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and had participated in the yearly Aldermaston March. Idle maintains that there was little to do at the school, and boredom drove him to study hard and consequently win a place at Cambridge University.
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