Edward Ian MacNaughton (30 December 1925 – 10 December 2002) was a Scottish actor-turned-television producer and director, best known for his work with the Monty Python team. MacNaughton was director and producer for all but four of the forty five episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus from 1969 to 1974, director of the group's first feature film And Now for Something Completely Different in 1971 and director of their two German episodes, Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus in 1971 and 1972. In 1973, the production team shared the BAFTA Award for Best Light Entertainment Programme for Monty Python's Flying Circus. Early life Ian MacNaughton was born in Glasgow and educated at Strathallan School in Perthshire. His elder brother was killed in World War II. MacNaughton spent a year in medical school before abandoning his plans to become a doctor and joining the Royal Marines for a year in 1945. While serving with the Royal Marines in an officers' training squad at Deal, Kent, he was offered the chance to act with the Globe Players which was the Royal Marines amateur dramatics group. After he was demobilised in 1946, he returned to Glasgow, where his father hoped he would join the family firm. However, he decided to apply for a one-year pre-RADA course in London, which he completed, though he did not enter the Academy itself. Actor On his return to Scotland, MacNaughton spent several years acting on stage, regularly appearing in productions at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow and the Gateway Theatre in Edinburgh. Most notably in 1948 he appeared in Tyrone Guthrie's production of David Lyndsay's A Satire of the Three Estates at the Edinburgh Festival. MacNaughton started his film career with a small role as the police constable in the 1953 film Laxdale Hall, a British romantic comedy set in a village in the Scottish Highlands. In the same year he also had a small role in Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue as Callum MacGregor. In 1955 MacNaughton moved back to London, and was cast as Able Seaman McIntosh in Seagulls over Sorrento and as Haggis in the 1956 science fiction film X the Unknown. He then appeared in three episodes of the British television comedy show Hancock's Half Hour and had small roles in the films The Silent Enemy and The Safecracker. MacNaughton continued to appear in small roles in both television and film throughout 1958 and 1959