Actor Stephen Fry, who walked out of a starring role on the West End of London two weeks ago and vanished, has surfaced, sort of.
Though his whereabouts are still unknown, he sent a fax to his agent, Lorraine Hamilton, that was printed in several British newspapers. In it, Fry denied he had left the play, "Cell Mates," because of poor reviews he received or because he had suffered an emotional collapse, as had been rumored.Apologizing to the producer of the show and to the other actors, he said, "I have been selfish. I cannot deny that. I desperately needed to go away and rethink my life. I may live for another 37 years, and it would be foolish to carry on doing things for which I haven't either the aptitude or perhaps the desire."
Besides acting on the stage, in movies ("Peter's Friends") and on television ("Jeeves and Wooster"), Fry is a writer, whose second novel, "The Hippopotamus," has just been published in the United States by Random House.
So where has he gone? In the fax, he pleaded that no one search for him. "In time," he wrote, "I will have to return and no doubt face the music, but for the moment, I need a little quietness."