Terry Gilliam has spoken of his sadness at seeing his friend and fellow Monty Python member Terry Jones suffer from dementia.
The actor and comedian, who directed some of the troupe’s best-loved works, died on Tuesday at the age of 77.
Gilliam paid tribute to Jones on Twitter, writing that he was “totally consumed with life, a brilliant, constantly questioning, iconoclastic, righteously argumentative and angry but outrageously funny and generous and kind human being … and very often a complete pain in the ass”.
Now he has also told The Sun: “Terry’s dementia was very sad. I got so depressed when I saw Terry because I was not sure he even recognised who I was.
“It’s harder to get things through.
“We were old buddies and physically he looked great. He was a well-groomed shell.”
He added: “Who Terry used to be was no longer inhabiting his body, as far as we could see.”
A statement on behalf of Jones’s family said they were “deeply saddened” to announce the death of a “beloved husband and father”, who had “given pleasure to countless millions across six decades”.
They hailed an “extraordinarily talented, playful and happy man living a truly authentic life, in his words ‘Lovingly frosted with glucose’.”