Cleese told CBS News' Tracy Smith that his attitude toward show business has changed in recent years, from being "essentially trivial," to helping people cope with a maddening world.

"With so much misery in the world and all these news reports every day, always about people getting killed, 155 people died in a ferry in Indonesia, and a coach drove off a high road on the Neapolitan Peninsula ... It's not a cheerful prospect out there. And if show business people can go out and make people happy, send them home thinking, 'Well, life's okay,' I suddenly realized that's really important!"

"That must make you feel better about your life's work then," said Smith.

"I think it does!" he laughed. "People used to come out and say, 'Oh, you're so wonderful.' What are they talking about? I didn't invent a cure for cancer, you know? I'm not Jonas Salk or something. But now I see it more. I see that it's a way of introducing happiness."

John Marwood Cleese was born on October 27, 1939 in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England, the only child of an insurance salesman who had changed the family name from Cheese.

Cleese described his mother, Muriel, as "frightened, angry, needed to have everything her own way because she felt she couldn't cope otherwise. So, she ruled from weakness."

"How did that affect you?" Smith asked.

"I think I was frightened of her, 'cause when she got angry she got really angry. It was as though anger just filled her up and there wasn't any room for a personality anymore. She was just a sort of ball of anger."

As she got older, Cleese learned to dissipate her depression and anxiety with humor, by suggesting he could have "a little man from Fulham" come around and kill her, if she felt like it.

John Cleese with his father, Reginald.

Regarding his father's relationship with his mother, Cleese said, "Dad always tried to pretend he was above it all. But I think deep down, he was deeply scared, 'cause no person likes to be with a spouse who's really, really angry. It's frightening. 'Cause it means they're not themselves, you see what I mean?"

John Cleese with fellow cricket-players at Clifton College, before attending Cambridge University.

Having participated in theatricals at Clifton, when Cleese studied law at Cambridge, he fell in with the esteemed Cambridge Footlights company, where he met future Python Graham Chapman. The Cambridge revues were such successes that they were translated to London's West End and New York. So, upon graduation, when an offer to write for the BBC was made, Cleese decided a law career was no longer in the cards.

Ronnie Corbett, Ronnie Barker and John Cleese in "The Frost Report." The satire series, hosted by David Frost, featured future Pythons Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Terry Jones, as well as Marty Feldman; Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor (future Goodies); Barry Cryer ("You'll Have Had Your Tea"); and Antony Jay ("Yes, Minister").

John Cleese with his writing partner Graham Chapman.

The two contributed to several British TV shows, such as "That Was the Week That Was," "The Frost Report," "At Last the 1948 Show," and "Doctor in the House," before beginning "Monty Python's Flying Circus" in 1969.

A group portrait of Monty Python: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Eric Idle.

Their groundbreaking BBC show, "Monty Python's Flying Circus," debuted on October 5, 1969, which was followed by successful record albums, books and stage shows, as well as some of the funniest movies ever made.

John Cleese as the Minister of Silly Walks, from "Monty Python's Flying Circus."

Tracy Smith asked, "What is it about your work with Python that so resonates with people?"

"I think it's that it is so silly that it gives people a mindset that enables them to realize how silly the whole world is," he replied. "One of the loveliest things that people ever said to me at the beginning of Python [was], 'Once we've watched Python, we can't then watch the evening news, 'cause we cannot take it seriously.'

"I think it takes a long time, as you get older, to realize just how crazy the world is, just how ridiculous it all is. And I think people sometimes get that feeling after they've watched Python. And it's very relaxing. Because when you realize it's hopeless, then you can just have fun losing your mind -- what else are you gonna do before you die?"

"I'll do what I like, because I'm six-foot-five, and I eat punks like you for breakfast!"

Cleese's specialties included playing upper-class bankers and businessmen, lawyers, and other scions of authority and money. But his true talent was as a foil for fellow Python Michael Palin, who tryied to flog a dead parrot onto an unsuspecting customer.

In an attempt to introduce Python humor to America, a feature film of the best sketches was produced in 1971, featuring the Upper Class Twit of the Year Show, a competition in which wealthy idiots are even too stupid to kill themselves properly.

Ironically, while the film died in the U.S., it was a hit in England, where audiences had seen the material already on TV.

John Cleese does a slow burn as a customer hoping to purchase some cheese, only to be constantly thwarted by the cheery shopowner, in the Cheese Shop sketch from the third season of "Monty Python's Flying Circus."

After the third series, Cleese left the show, seeking to pursue other projects, though he continued to make films with the group.

Inspired by an obnoxious hotel owner he'd come across while on a location shoot for "Monty Python's Flying Circus," "Fawlty Towers" starred John Cleese as the stupendously ill-equipped hotel manager Basil Fawlty. Also in the cast were Prunella Scales as Basil's wife, Sybil; Connie Booth (Cleese's real-life wife and co-writer at the time) as Polly; and Andrew Sachs as Manuel.

Only 12 half-hour episodes of "Fawlty Towers" were produced, but their intricately-plotted scripts were marvelously inventive. Remake rights to the series were sold and re-sold in various failed attempts to reintroduce the show with an American cast for American audiences (including "Snavely," starring Harvey Korman; "Amanda's," starring Bea Arthur; and "Payne," starring John Larroquette). But they needn't have bothered: the original is consistently listed among the top comedy series of all time.

The members of Monty Python collapsing in the Scottish countryside during shooting of their hilarious romp, "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975), in which King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table encounter taunting Frenchmen, killer rabbits, and mysterious figures who covet shrubberies.

The Black Knight (John Cleese) duels with King Arthur (Graham Chapman), even as he loses one extremity after the other, in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Black Knight: "Right, I'll do you for that!"
King Arthur: "You'll what?"
Black Knight: Come here!
King Arthur: "What are you gonna do, bleed on me?"
Black Knight: "I'm invincible!"
King Arthur: "You're a loony."

John Cleese as an enchanter in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

Chapman: "By what name are you known?"
Cleese: "There are some who call me ... Tim."

John Cleese played Arthur Sherlock Holmes, grandson of the famed detective, in the 1977 TV comedy, "The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It." With Arthur Lowe as Dr. Watson.

The Pythons' uproarious "Life of Brian" (1979) sent up Biblical movies, religious intolerance and political gamesmanship in its story of a young man, a contemporary of Jesus Christ, who is mistaken for the Messiah.

Brian: "Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't need to follow me. You don't need to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for yourselves! You're all individuals!"
Hordes of followers: "Yes! We're all individuals!"

John Cleese and Graham Chapman in "Life of Brian."

"I think I've done two really good comedies - 'Life of Brian' and 'A Fish Called Wanda,'" Cleese told Tracy Smith. "Those are the two that I would hold up at the Pearly Gates and say, 'Look, can I come in, please?'"

John Cleese obviously breaking some Tunisian taboo on the set of "Life of Brian."

In 1980 the Monty Python troupe brought their stage show to L.A.'s Hollywood Bowl. A recording was later released in theatres.

John Cleese as Lenin - one of several revolutionary figures being quizzed about English football - in "Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl" (1982).

In "Monty Python's The Meaning Life" (1983), one of John Cleese's characters was a doctor in a maternity ward.

Hospital Administrator: "What are you doing this morning?"
1st Doctor: "It's a birth."
Administrator: "Ah! And what sort of thing is that?"
2nd Doctor: "Well, that's when we take a new baby out of a lady's tummy."
Administrator: "Wonderful what we can do nowadays!"

"What's all this, then?"

In Lawrence Kasdan's western "Silverado" (1985), John Cleese played Sheriff Langston, who was clearly not from around these parts.

In "Clockwise" (1986), written by Michael Frayn and directed by Christopher Morahan, John Cleese played an extremely punctual headmaster whose life crumbles once time is not on his side.

John Cleese and Jamie Lee Curtis in the 1988 comic romp, "A Fish Called Wanda," in which a British barrister is sucked into a plot involving armed robbery and dog assassinations.

John Cleese in "A Fish Called Wanda."

The film was an international hit. Cleese shared an Oscar nomination for his original screenplay, while co-star Kevin Kline won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Otto (Kevin Kline) gives Archie (John Cleese) a lesson in the art of persuasion in "A Fish Called Wanda."

In a followup to "A Fish Called Wanda," Cleese reunited the cast for the 1997 farce, "Fierce Creatures," about a zoo being turned upside-down by new management.

"When we did "Fierce Creatures," which is not that bad - it's mixed, like most movies, there's some very funny stuff and two or three quite bad scenes in it, I'm sorry to say - but that's like most movies, you know? ... I mean, it was a big disappointment at the time, as I can see what we got wrong. And it's a shame, because I think I was trying to write a movie for the whole family.

"'Wanda' was very black and cynical. It was something for young couples to go and see or old couples to go and see. It was not for mum to take the kids to, which is what I was trying to do in 'Fierce Creatures.'"

In the sitcom "Will & Grace," John Cleese (pictured with Minnie Driver) guest-starred as Lyle Finster, briefly married to Karen Walker (Megan Mullally). Cleese earned his fourth Emmy nomination, followed his Emmy-winning guest turn on "Cheers" (playing Dr. Simon Finch-Royce, a marriage counselor who advises Sam and Diane not only not to get married, but to never see each other again) and on "3rd Rock from the Sun."

"Nerves are always a big problem for me, which is why I loved doing American sitcoms, like 'Cheers' and 'Will & Grace,'" Cleese told Tracy Smith. "Because you know when you do the take in front of the audience that you're going to do it again afterwards. A minute after you finish, you just go and do it again. So, there's that sort of safety net. And then if you made a little mistake or two, they'll go pick it up, so there's nothing to worry about. And so you are more relaxed. And people are funnier when they're more relaxed."

John Cleese stepped into the shoes of MI6's Q - purveyor of cool gadgets for Agent 007 - in the James Bond films "The World Is Not Enough" and "Die Another Day" (with Pierce Brosnan).

Bond, on the virtual reality simulator: "Give me the old fashioned target range, Quartermaster."
Q: "Yes. Well, it's called the future, so get used to it."

John Cleese played Inspector Dreyfus opposite Steve Martin's inept Inspector Clouseau in the 2009 comedy, "The Pink Panther 2."

Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, John Cleese and Terry Jones perform on the closing night of "Monty Python Live (Mostly)," the group's reunion stage show, at London's O2 Arena on July 20, 2014.

The reunion was wildly successful, selling out 10 performances, with the final show beamed via satellite to cinemas around the world. It was also the subject of a documentary, "The Meaning of Live."

Despite his fame and success, Cleese is not in it for the accolades. "I was offered a CBE, a Commander of the British Empire -- one of those things you can put after your name," he said.

"Which is very cool!" said Smith.

"And I said, 'What British Empire?'"

"You literally said that?

"We've still got the Falklands!"

For more info:

TheJohnCleese.com

"So Anyway" by John Cleese (Crown Archtype); Also available in Trade Paperback and eBook formats

montypython.com

"John Cleese and Eric Idle: Together Again at Last, for the Very First Time" (Through Oct. 31) | Tour Dates and Tickets