'I think deep down I'm a romantic': John Cleese explains why he married a fourth time after his ex took him for $24 million ... and compares the royals to baboons

'Don't mention the war!' has to be one of the most famous comedy lines in the world.

But while the comedian who penned it has made millions laugh - and amassed millions of dollars in the process - Faulty Towers star John Cleese's personal life hasn't been as fruitful.

In fact the 75-year-old Monty Python star would be the first to admit his romantic history has been a bit of a turkey - but he's 'now very much in love' with current wife Jennifer Wade.

Tense:  Funnyman John Cleese loses his sense of humour when he talks to Australian presenter Liz Hayes on Sunday night about his divorce settlement on Channel Nine's 60 Minutes

Photo bomb! British national treasure John and wife No 4 Jennifer Wade get photobombed in London

The British national treasure married Jennifer, who at 43 is 32 years his junior, in August 2012 and in an interview with Sunday Night's Liz Hayes he says he's met his match, in love and humour.

John, who was forced to pay an AU$24 million divorce settlement to his ex-wife, US psychotherapist Alyce Faye Eichelberger, says it's the humour that binds him and Jennifer together.

The writer, actor and comedian told the Nine Network host he married the British-born jewellery designer because: 'I think deep down I'm a romantic.

'As I say God put me on the planet to understand women better so how am I going to do that?

'I'm going to find another one. So I'm now very much in love with Jen - or Fish as they calll her because she swims like a fish - and we laugh immoderately and are wonderfully rude to each other. 

'People think we're having a row and we're just falling about with laughter.'

Cheese: John's whose surname was originally Cheese, poses with Jennifer at an NSPCC bash in London

Hopefully the couple that laughs together stays together as he's certainly not laughing about the money he has had to pay to his American ex wife of 15 years Alyce. Far from it. 

The couple wed in December 1992 and both have children from previous marriages but they had no children together.

When they split in 2008 Alyce hired Prince Charles and Paul McCartney's fierce lawyer Fiona Shackleton and outrageously ended up with more of his fortune than the comedian.

His vitriol against the famous lawyer, who has been dubbed the Steel Magnolia for her fierce demeanor, and Alyce has been well documented - but in this case it doesn't appear time is a healer.

He sniped to Liz: 'She went after me really quite brutally by hiring the nastiest - and I don't mean the second nastiest or the third nastiest - but the nastiest lawyer in Santa Barbara.

'My wife went and hired this really nasty woman and I had to giver her $20 million. It's not fair.'

See that? That's my millions going up in smoke: The comedian and actor poses with ex wife Alyce Faye who was granted an AU $24 million divorce settlement thanks to teaming up with fierce lawyer Fiona Shackleton

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Que?: John, at the back, with his Faulty Towers co-stars L-R: Prunella Scales, Connie Booth - who was both his wife and co-writer of the popular series - and Andrew Sachs

But like the true pro he is, the funnyman went back on the road and poured all his heartbreak, anger and frustration into what he called the Alimony Tour. And it made great material.

In one clip he jokes, 'I call it the 'Alimony Tour' year II' or "Feeding The Beast". 'And here's a recent photograph of my ex wife at a London ATM helping herself to some of my money...

'Apparently I got off lightly because my lawyer points out how much more I would have had to pay my ex wife had she contributed anything to the relationship,' he jokes,'...if we had children...or even a two-way conversation.'

What the psychotherapist makes of it is anyone's guess as the warring duo haven't spoken since their acrimonious split.

'She always said from the very beginning that if we broke up we would never speak again,' he continues. 'And from the day that we broke up we have never spoken.

'And I have decided it's an extremely good arrangement.'

Welcome: The cast of Faulty Towers reunited again for UK TV station GOLD's relaunch in 2009

Spamalot: I was once all smiles for the funnyman and ex Alyce Faye, who he hasn't spoken to in years

John's was previously married to Connie Booth who co-wrote and starred opposite him in the ward-wining legendary 12-show series Faulty Towers as Polly, and they have a daughter, Cynthia.

He had a second daughter, Camilla, with his second wife, the late American actress Barbara Trentham.

Unsurprisingly John has turned down a British life peerage - a noble hereditary titles constituted by the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system - and a CBE.

He cited the fact he'd have to stay in the UK in the British winter as the main reason but also joked, 'why would you accept such a thing?'

But the star, who has an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay for A Fish Called Wanda, still loves nothing more than ridiculing the British class system with all its funny quaint customs.

And he jokes that his dad, who actually changed the family surname from Cheese to Cleese because he was fed up of being called 'fermented cheese' told him the upper classes are actually baboons.

'Dad had been in India mixing with the upper middle classes,' he adds.

'And he noticed how they behaved. It's really baboon behaviour - they're not easily startled, they move very slowly all of the time...' 

And in his true anarchic style he jokes, 'if you look at the royals they keep these cheek muscles rigid all the time and all the emotion is completely superfluous and unnecessary - it's a straitjacket.

'That's upper class behaviour.'

The actor, who was born in the sprawling English county of Somerset, has just written his autobiography called So, Anyway... and in it details how his lost his virginity in New Zealand. 

He jokes the country was so backward he left the UK, 'in July 1964 and I arrived in New Zealand where it was 1922. They were clueless except at rugby and cricket.' 

And of his virginity, which he lost whist there at the ripe old age of 24, he tells the Network Nine host he was,'so ineffectual and ill at ease with women that it was quite extraordinary when I look back at it.'

The star, who has been in the business for more than 50 years, was studying to be a lawyer when he got entrenched in comedy, and chose to sign for the BBC to meet his parents' approval.

'As it was the BBC,' he said during the 60 Minutes interview, 'I could sell it to my parents - a bit like joining the civil services. 

Soul-mate: 'People think we're having a row and we're just falling about with laughter,' John says of their love

'And if I was able to say there was a pension scheme...they they would say "fine, go into showbiz!"'

At the age of 30 he founded the hilarious and completely random cult comedy classic Monty Python with Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Michael Palin.

It became a worldwide hit - so much so that when they announced their UK reunion tour The Last Night of Monty Python earlier this year it sold out in a record-breaking 43 seconds.

But although they had fun getting together for their first major collaboration in 30 years years John says the outrageous anarchy of Monty Python is now a closed chapter.

He said there was one moment when he looked out and 'saw 16,000 people but I remember thinking, "how extraordinary that I don't feel excited?" 

'That was my emotional reaction and it wasn't a choice, and that's when I think I realised I have the talents of an actor but not the temperament, and I'm much happier writing.'

However he credits the award-winning show for providing him with his most favourite skit of all time.

'The silliest thing (I've done) was the fish slapping,' he continues. 

'I always say that I think some time in the future some poor student of media studies is going to have to write an essay about what that means.

'But it is almost meaningless, and yet it's extraordinarily funny, and I love that.'