The Human Face

The companion volume to the August television series on The Learning Channel takes a close-up look at the human face to reveal a myriad of complex expressions that shed light on the nature of human personality.

Brian Bates has degrees in psychology and biology from the universities of California and Oregon. Following researches into medical psychology at Cambridge University, England, he set up a program at Sussex University to explore modern applications of ancient tribal medical theory and practice. In addition to publishing scientific papers and teaching courses on consciousness, he served there as Chairman of Psychology. He has taught imagination techniques for actors, including face and mask work, and directed plays at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London; he also wrote a best-selling novel-The Way of Wyrd -- and several other books on psychology. Brian Bates now conducts seminars internationally for people in business and the arts. John Cleese was born in Weston Super Mare. However, he recovered sufficiently to be admitted to Cambridge University to study science. After sampling the conversation in the Chemistry laboratories, he switched to Law, but the success of the 1963 Footlights Review saved him from a career in court. After appearing in a Broadway musical, in which he was forbidden to sing, he became a writer-performer in The Frost Report, Monty Python's Flying Circus, the Monty Python films, Fawlty Towers, and A Fish Called Wanda. In 1972 Sir Tony Jay invited him to co-found Video Arts. This company became the leading provider of business training programs on video, which annoyed most of the Pythons. He helped Dr. Robin Skynner to write two bestsellers, Families and How to Survive Them and Life and How to Survive It and was briefly Britain's best-known psychiatric patient. He also started the Secret Policeman's Ball concerts for Amnesty, and has continued to do charity work, much of it, like The Human Face, for the BBC. John Cleese makes a point of marrying Americans, and is at least sixty years old.