Carol Cleveland writes her autobiography

Monty Python’s ‘7th member’, Carol Cleveland, is to write her memoirs to coincide with the comedy troupe’s comeback gigs this summer.

The actress, now 72, was the only permanently featured female performer with the all-male line-up, appearing in 30 of the 45 TV episodes and all four films.

Terry Jones recently said of her contribution: ‘We were very grateful for Carol Cleveland. She filled her role like nobody's business.’

And during the filming of the first series, Michael Palin said to her: ’I'm so sorry we don't have more for you to do but we're just not very good at writing parts for women.’

As well as her work with Python, Cleveland appeared in more than 30 other films, 55 TV shows and 85 theatre roles, as well as a variety of BBC radio shows – all of which she promises to cover in her new book PomPoms Up! She was even directed by Charlie Chaplin in the 1967 film comedy The Countess From Hong Kong starring Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren.

She said earlier this month: ‘As much as Python has been a wonderful thing for me in another respect it has been a bit of a ball and chain simply because I'm known for that’

The autobiography will be released in June, the month before Cleveland joins Palin Jones, John Cleese, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam on stage for the ten London comeback gigs.

She has previously performed a one-woman stage show, also called PomPoms Up! about the world of beauty queens and ‘glamour stooges’.

Cleveland is not the only person to have been dubbed the 7th Python, as musician Neil Innes also warrants the soubriquet. She has previously said the unofficial title was too much, as she didn’t write on the series.

Click here to preorder the book from Waterstones, for £10.99.

Here is Cleveland in the Pythons’ Marriage Guidance sketch:

Published: 30 Jan 2014