Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist. He is well known as half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, with collaborator Hugh Laurie, with whom he co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster. Fry's acting roles include a Golden Globe Award-nominated lead performance in the film Wilde, Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, the title character in the television series Kingdom, a recurring guest role as Dr Gordon Wyatt on the crime series Bones, and as Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller V for Vendetta. He has also written and presented several documentary series, including the Emmy Award-winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, which saw him explore his bipolar disorder, and the travel series Stephen Fry in America.

Fry was born in Hampstead, London, on 24 August 1957 to Marianne Eve Fry (nee Newman) and Alan John Fry, a British physicist and inventor. Fry's father is English, and his paternal grandmother had roots in Kent and Cheshire. The Fry family originates in Dorset, at Shillingstone and Blandford; in the early 1800s, Samuel Fry (second son of James Fry, of Shillingstone and Blandford) settled in Surrey, with his descendants residing in Middlesex. Fry's mother is Jewish, but he was not brought up in a religious family. His maternal grandparents, Martin and Rosa Neumann, were Hungarian Jews, who emigrated from Surany (now Slovakia) to Britain in 1927. Rosa Neumann's parents, who originally lived in Vienna, were sent to a concentration camp in Riga, Latvia, where they were murdered. His mother's aunt and cousins were sent to Auschwitz and Stutthof and never seen again. Fry grew up in the village of Booton near Reepham, Norfolk, having moved from Chesham, Buckinghamshire, at an early age. He has an elder brother, Roger, and a younger sister, Joanna. Fry briefly attended Cawston Primary School in Cawston, Norfolk, before going on to Stouts Hill Preparatory School in Uley, Gloucestershire, at the age of seven, and then to Uppingham School, Rutland, where he joined Fircroft house, and was described as a "near-asthmatic genius". He was expelled from Uppingham when he was 15 and subsequently from the Paston School. At 17, after leaving Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen from a family friend. He had taken a coat when leaving a pub, planning to spend the night sleeping rough, but had then discovered the card in a pocket. He was arrested in Swindon, and, as a result, spent three months in Pucklechurch Prison on remand. While Fry was in Pucklechurch, his mother had cut out the crossword from every copy of The Times since he had been away, something which Fry said was "a wonderful act of kindness". Fry later stated that these crosswords were the only thing that got him through the ordeal. Following his release, he resumed his education at City College Norwich, promising administrators that he would study rigorously to sit the Cambridge entrance exams. He scored well enough to gain a scholarship to Queens' College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, Fry joined the Footlights, appeared on University Challenge, and read for a degree in English literature, graduating with upper second-class honours. Fry also met his future comedy collaborator Hugh Laurie at Cambridge and starred alongside him in the Footlights. CANNOTANSWER

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