Monty Python star Terry Jones, master of countless characters such as Mr. Creosote and Cardinal Biggles, director of Life of Brian , is dead at 77. The BBC reports he was suffering from dementia.

Life of Brian was viewed as controversial for its comedic depiction of a young Jewish man who is born on the same day as and next door to Jesus Christ, and is subsequently mistaken for the Messiah.

"I think we'll get into a lot of trouble," explained Jones at the time. "I think there'll be a lot of hackles raised, but it isn't a spoof on the life of Christ, in fact. It started off as, 'Let's do a life of Christ' and we thought, 'That's a very outrageous thing to do'.

He added: "So in fact, we did the life of someone who was born in the stable next to Christ and who wasn't Christ and didn't have quite such a glamorous life."

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