Terry Gilliam: If Variety Says I'm Dead, It's True

Terry Gilliam (center) with Eric Idle and Terry Jones earlier this year (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)

Director Terry Gilliam was as surprised as anyone to see his death announced in Variety. Yesterday, the trade paper published an obituary for the director on its website, beginning with the words “Director Terry Gilliam, the only American member of the Monty Python comedy troupe and an Oscar nominee for the screenplay to his film Brazil, has died.” The blank spaces in the article (for example, the headline read “XXX” in place of Gilliam’s age) indicated pretty clearly that it was posted in error, and Variety issued an apology shortly afterwards.

Nevertheless, Gilliam decided that Variety must know best. In a cheeky Facebook post this morning, he insisted that the initial report was correct, writing, “I APOLOGIZE FOR BEING DEAD especially to those who have already bought tickets to the upcoming talks, but, Variety has announced my demise. Don’t believe their retraction and apology!” Accompanying his post was an illustration (below) of the director lying in a coffin, along with a mourner bearing a sign that reads, “He was only 30! Bad reviews from Variety aged him!” (The illustration was presumably made by Gilliam himself, since it resembles his signature cut-out animations.)

Terry Gilliam posted this illustration in response to the Variety announcement.

In point of fact, Gilliam is alive and well. The director is approaching his 75th birthday, and will soon be doing three speaking engagements to promote his autobiography (in stores October 1), ironically titled Gilliamesque, A Pre-posthumous Memoir. He’s also going into production early next year on his long-delayed Don Quixote movie, which was abandoned after a few disastrous days of shooting in 2000. Meanwhile, Gilliam’s erroneously-reported death is giving fans an excuse to one-up each other with Monty Python jokes on Twitter (see examples below).