Halfway to Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988

The second volume of diaries from one of Britain’s best-loved national treasures.

After a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl, The Pythons made their last performance together in 1983 in the hugely successful MONTY PYTHON’S MEANING OF LIFE. Writing and acting in films and television then took over much of Michael Palin’s life, culminating in the smash hit A FISH CALLED WANDA (for which he won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor), and the first of his celebrated television journeys for the BBC. He co-produced, wrote and played the lead in THE MISSIONARY opposite Maggie Smith, who also appeared with him in A PRIVATE FUNCTION, written by Alan Bennett.

Such was Michael’s fame in the US that he was enticed into once again hosting Saturday Night Live (with his mother making a highly successful surprise guest appearance). Over the course of these diaries he films several more journeys for television and becomes chairman of the pressure group Transport 2000. His family remains a constant as his and Helen’s children enter their teens.

Michael Palin has written and starred in numerous TV programmes and films, from Monty Python and Ripping Yarns to The Missionary and The Death of Stalin. He has also made several much-acclaimed travel documentaries, his journeys taking him to the North and South Poles, the Sahara Desert, the Himalayas, Eastern Europe and Brazil. His books include accounts of his journeys, two novels (Hemingway’s Chair and The Truth), three volumes of diaries and Erebus, the Story of a Ship. From 2009 to 2012 he was president of the Royal Geographical Society. He received a BAFTA fellowship in 2013, and a knighthood in the 2019 New Year Honours list. He lives in London.