Stephen Fry has revealed details of his teenage years, including a three-month prison sentence for credit card theft and his expulsion from school after a five-day cinema binge. The actor and writer shared the stories in a BBC Radio 4 interview for the programme This Cultural Life.
Fry, who grew up in Norfolk, described himself as a boy who was “hopeless at almost everything children are supposed to be good at” but had a gift for words. He recalled instantly seeing the anagram “Carthorse” for “orchestra” on a classroom board, calling it “almost a savant thing”.
His passion for language was sparked by P.G. Wodehouse’s Very Good, Jeeves, given to him for his 10th birthday. He later played Jeeves on television alongside Hugh Laurie. Oscar Wilde became a lifelong obsession after Fry discovered Wilde’s homosexuality mirrored his own. He later played Wilde in the film Wilde, earning a Golden Globe nomination.
Fry’s first taste of performance came at age 14 when he played a witch in Macbeth, using a bucket of guts from a butcher. At 12, he was the youngest member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. A trip to the society led to his expulsion: he stayed in London for five days watching films including A Clockwork Orange, and his parents later told him he had been expelled.
After failing his A-levels, Fry stole a credit card and was sentenced to three months in Pucklechurch prison. He joked it was “an absolute breeze” compared to public school, and he taught his cellmate to read and write. Upon release, his parents told him to decide his own path. He cycled to Norwich City College on the last day of registration and retook his A-levels.
