Just a few weeks after their 57th wedding anniversary and three days before his 80th birthday, Michael Palin lost his beloved wife Helen Gibbins.
She had been his childhood sweetheart, the woman he described as “the bedrock of his life”. Now, nearly a year on, the Monty Python-star-turned travel host still can’t quite believe she’s no longer with him. He confides that his world now feels “unreal”, as he struggles with the “foreverness of it”.
As a bona-fide national treasure, it hard to think he feels so alone. Michael reflects on the loss: “It’s not easy. It is an unreal world you enter. Someone you have been with so long and every reference point in your life is connected with that person... and suddenly they are not there, [but] you kind of fool yourself that they are there.”
Helen, the mother of Michael’s three children, was 80 when she passed on May 2, 2023, having suffered from kidney failure and battling for many years. She was on dialysis and in chronic pain before, as Michael previously admitted, she decided with her children and doctors to “give it up”.
Michael Palin with his wife Helen Gibbins in London in 1968 (Popperfoto via Getty Images)
And the couple during the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival at Beacon Theatre (Getty Images North America)The couple first met aged 16 on holiday with their families on the Suffolk coast. Announcing her death in a statement last year, Michael recalled that first day he saw her, saying: “We were both 16, and we married in our early 20s... Helen was the bedrock of my life. Her quietly-wise judgment informed all my decisions and her humour and practical good sense was at the heart of our life together.”
Monty Python's Michael Palin devastated as wife dies after chronic pain battle
Now, at least, he has the comfort of knowing the woman he loved is no longer suffering, even if he is. “It is kind of dealing with the foreverness of it,” he confesses, of how his life is now. “That it is forever.”
Helen was by Michael’s side throughout his career, which began with productions for Oxford Review, the theatre club at Oxford University where he studied with Terry Jones. She was around when he and Jones met the rest of their circus of funnymen: Cambridge alumni John Cleese, 84, Graham Chapman – who died aged 48 in 1989 – and Eric Idle, 81, plus the one non-Oxbridge member, Terry Gilliam, 83.
The crew became a phenomenon and fans around the world loved the subversive digs at many of the UK’s institutions and traditions, all wrapped up in their unique Python silliness. More recently the digs have mostly been directed at each other, with Idle and Cleese recently coming to verbal blows over a series of allegations about their manager – Gilliam’s daughter Holly – as well as John’s treatment of Jones, who passed away from frontotemporal dementia aged 77 in 2020.
Michael Palin and his children Thomas (born 1969), William (born 1970) and Rachel (born 1975) (David Thorpe/REX/Shutterstock)Speaking in February, Eric said: “I don’t know why people always assume we’re loaded. Python is a disaster. Spamalot made money 20 years ago. I have to work for my living. Not easy at this age.” Eric, well known for engaging with his social media followers, then complained: “I never dreamed the income streams would tail off so disastrously. But I guess if you put a Gilliam child in as your manager you should not be so surprised. One Gilliam is bad enough. Two can take out any company.”
Cleese had said the surviving Pythons, including Michael, had nothing but appreciation for Holly. He also declared he and Eric had “always loathed and despised each other”, later clarifying that had only been meant as a joke.
In his interview for BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life airing on Thursday, ever-polite Michael a few home truths about the not-so good old days. “We are still close as friends as we share so much,” he says, dryly adding: “including income which has to be worked out.”
And while not exactly joining the fray between his former colleagues he does hint at the divisions. “We see each other but not as often,” he admits. “I see Terry Gilliam as he lives close by. John lives in various parts of the world, I am not quite sure where, and Eric lives in America.
Terry Gilliam, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and John Cleese (Getty Images)“We are not that close, but when we get together, we talk about ‘that thing’ as if it was like a long affair from years ago, and we get rather tearful. Python is still selling around the world, not what it used to, [but] it achieved success that none of us would have dreamed of.”
He confesses it wasn’t always all laughs behind the scenes, saying: “It did get competitive... and yes there were problems sometimes." There was immediate friction due to their Oxford versus Cambridge University rivalry.
While John, Graham, and Eric had all been in Cambridge’s legendary Footlights group, Terry and Michael cut their comedy teeth in the Oxford Revue – a company of Oxford students that Michael co-founded. He laughs: “Cambridge was of course better organised, ruthless and aggressive. Terry and I would write in separate groups, Gilliam on his own, Eric on his own, and John and Graham.
Monty Python legend Michael Palin's poignant vow after the death of his wife
“I wrote with Terry as I knew him so well. We had a morning of silly ideas, and then we would go away and write in our separate groups.” Michael adds: “Writing with John I did find difficult as John had a different way of working, very systematic and line by line.”
It’s clear that Michael is very much the polite guy of comedy who became much-loved host of popular travel shows including Around the World in 80 Days, and a writer of travel books. Father to Thomas, born in 1969; William, born in 1970; and Rachel, born in 1975; he is also a doting grandfather to four. His work still helps him – rather appropriately – to look on the bright side of life.
After having a pacemaker fitted in 2019, he travelled to Iraq in 2022 and recently filmed a new Channel 5 travel series exploring Nigeria. Michael doesn’t want to retire the passport yet. “I have always kept fit, and especially with the travel, you really have to be,” he explains. “I had open heart surgery in 2019. I had a little problem with the valves being loose. I have got a pacemaker in and all sorts of wonderful stuff. It is like one of the machines in one of the Python films that went ‘Ping!’
“So as long as I can, I will use my good health to carry on being able to travel or write.”
He is planning on giving himself a little downtime too. “I am 80 now and there has to be a point where you to sort of leave it to the younger generation,” he says. Something tells us he has a quite a few more miles left to travel yet.
- Michael Palin is on Radio 4’s This Cultural Life on Thursday at 11am.
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