Revealed: The doctor who died laughing at John Cleese film A Fish Called Wanda… but it was Michael Palin’s scene that led to his demise

He boasted that he ‘killed a dentist’ who found his 1988 movie comedy A Fish Called Wanda so funny that he died laughing.

But the Mail can now reveal that John Cleese’s story is lacking in two important respects.

It has emerged that the man who died, Ole Bentzen, was a doctor rather than a dentist. 

And the fatal ‘blow’ was delivered by Cleese’s fellow Python, Michael Palin, in a scene where chips are shoved up his nose by the villain, played by Kevin Kline.

The revelations come after the Mail tracked down Mr Bentzen’s son, Professor Niels Bentzen, who said his father would be ‘turning in his grave’ at Cleese’s description of him.

But the good news is that Professor Bentzen not only sees the funny side, he even delivers lectures inspired by his father’s demise. The 79-year-old said last night: ‘Yes, my father died laughing at A Fish Called Wanda.

The fatal ‘blow’ was delivered by Cleese’s fellow Python, Michael Palin (pictured, right), in a scene where chips are shoved up his nose by the villain, played by Kevin Kline (pictured, left)

The film follows a gang of diamond thieves who double-cross each other in an attempt to find a stash of diamonds hidden by their leader

John Cleese, 84, (pictured) said on his new GB News television series: ‘Kevin Kline and I killed a man in Denmark. He was a dentist, he had a huge laugh. A famous laugh’

Dr Bentzen, 71, (pictured) went to see A Fish Called Wanda in Denmark’s second city Aarhus in March 1989

‘I think it was Michael Palin who made my father laugh so violently, when he gets two chips in his nose and a pear in his mouth.

‘I actually spoke to John Cleese about my father’s death… about ten years ago. He was referring to him as a dentist then – and I told Mr Cleese my father would have turned in his grave if he’d been called a dentist instead of a doctor.

‘My father could hardly have wished for a better death.’ 

Cleese, 84, said on his new GB News television series: ‘Kevin Kline and I killed a man in Denmark. He was a dentist, he had a huge laugh. A famous laugh.

‘And he went to see Wanda and he started laughing about two minutes in and never stopped.

‘They carried him out dead.’

Dr Bentzen, 71, went to see A Fish Called Wanda in Denmark’s second city Aarhus in March 1989. Early in the film, Kline tortures Palin’s character by ramming chips up his nostrils.

That particularly tickled ear, nose and throat specialist Dr Bentzen, his son revealed.

But Professor Bentzen has no hard feelings. At a John Cleese fan festival in Aarhus, he delivered a lecture entitled ‘Death and humour: When the dying and the bereaved laugh’. A doctor himself, he teaches trainee medics to use humour when discussing death.

The professor added that his father’s raucous laugh runs in the family. ‘I have to take care it doesn’t get the better of me,’ he said.

‘When John Cleese asked if I’d seen Wanda, I said, “Are you crazy? I’m not ready to die”.’