Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, comedian, and writer. Fry's film acting roles include playing his idol Oscar Wilde in the film Wilde (1997), a performance which saw him nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, Inspector Thompson in Robert Altman's murder mystery Gosford Park (2001), and Mr. Johnson in Whit Stillman's Love & Friendship (2016). He also made appearances in Chariots of Fire (1981), A Fish Called Wanda (1988), and The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) as well as V for Vendetta (2005), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), and The Hobbit film series. 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. Besides working in television, Fry has been a prolific writer. Since the publication of his first novel, The Liar (1991), Fry has written three further novels, several non-fiction works, and three volumes of autobiography. Making History (1996) is partly set in an alternative universe in which Adolf Hitler's father is made infertile and his replacement proves a more effective Führer. The book won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. The Hippopotamus (1994) is about Edward (Ted/Tedward) Wallace and his stay at his old friend Lord Logan's country manor in Norfolk. The Hippopotamus was later adapted into a 2017 film. The Stars' Tennis Balls (2000) is a modern retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo. Fry's book The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within is a guide to writing poetry. When writing a book review for Tatler, Fry wrote under a pen name, Williver Hendry, editor of A Most Peculiar Friendship: The Correspondence of Lord Alfred Douglas and Jack Dempsey, a field close to his heart as an Oscar Wilde enthusiast. Once a columnist in The Listener and The Daily Telegraph, he now writes a weekly technology column in the Saturday edition of The Guardian. His blog attracted more than 300,000 visitors in its first two weeks. Less