John Cleese's new ladylove is half his age

London, July 21 : English actor John Cleese has found love once again. This time in the arms of a woman half his age.

Cleese, 68, is currently going through a very expensive divorce from his third wife Alyce Faye Eichelberger, but he still found time to take 34-year-old Veronica Smiley on a romantic trip to the Italian Great Lakes after meeting her in New York.

"She is certainly a new friend who is definitely a girl," Daily Telegraph quoted him as saying.

"More than that I simply don't want to disclose because the relationship is in its early stages and we do not know how it will develop," he stated.

The latest ladylove of Cleese, who is vice-president of marketing for US satirical political magazine Radar, said they shared a "very close, very warm friendship" and that the actor was "stimulating and extremely funny and charming".

However, Cleese's friend, film director Michael Winner, 72, who accompanied him on a trip through Switzerland and Italy to mark his divorce from Eichelberger after 16 years of marriage, says that the two of them are a couple.

"She's delightful and definitely a girlfriend," Winner told a Sunday newspaper.

When they reached Zurich they parted company, with Cleese continuing to Lake Como and Bergamo with Miss Smiley.

ANI