Hugh Grant
Encyclopedia : H : HU : HUG : Hugh Grant
Hugh John Mungo Grant (born 9 September, 1960) is an English actor who tends to play the stereotype of an upper middle class Englishman.
Background
Grant was born in London, England to James and the late Finvola Grant, who was of Scottish ancestry. He has one brother, James Grant, who lives in New York.Grant attended Latymer Upper School and New College, Oxford, where he read English. While at Oxford he was a member of the Piers Gaveston Society, a flamboyant student dining club named after the alleged lover of King Edward II of England. [Membership has it's Advantages, The Daily Telegraph. 18 October 2003]
Career
Grant made his film debut in 1982 with the Oxford-financed Privileged. Television came later, in 1985. In 1991, he starred in the film Impromptu as Frédéric Chopin opposite Julian Sands.
One of his first major film roles was in The Remains of the Day (1993), and he became simultaneously known as the partner of actress Elizabeth Hurley whom he had been dating since at least 1987. However, it was Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) which turned him into a major star.
Not long after gaining a starring role in Sense and Sensibility in 1995, Grant was arrested near Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, having been caught receiving oral sex from a prostitute, Divine Brown, in a car. A public apology on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno helped win back public support.[Brozan, Nadine. "Chronicle", The New York Times. 11 July, 1995] Although he was forgiven by Hurley, they broke up some years later.
Grant kept a low profile until 1999, when he starred in Notting Hill opposite Julia Roberts, and followed up with major successes in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), About a Boy (2002) and Two Weeks Notice (2002) opposite Sandra Bullock. He returned to frequent collaborator Richard Curtis for the 2003 romantic comedy, Love Actually, and the sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary, [[Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason]] was released in 2004.
He has recently been romantically connected with British heiress Jemima Goldsmith.
Grant has never acted on the London stage.
Trivia
- In his earlier career, he was often credited as Hughie Grant.
- Thomas Sangster, who played Sam in Love Actually, is Grant's second cousin once removed.
- Grant played cricket in his younger days, and currently enjoys playing golf, frequently taking part in Pro-Am tournaments where he receives tuition from Colin Montgomerie. He is a fan of Fulham Football Club.
- In the pilot edisode of Love Monkey one of the characters defines a man's discontenment with a woman, no matter how perfect, as "Grant's Law", named after Hugh Grant. It is a play upon Murphy's Law.
- On the Oprah Winfrey show during the promotions for End of Reason, he revealed that the only movie out of his whole career that "does not make [him] cringe" is About A Boy.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Other notes |
| 1982 | Privileged | Lord Adrian | |
| 1987 | Maurice | Clive Durham | Venice Film Festival - Won - Best Actor |
| 1987 | White Mischief | Hugh | |
| 1988 | The Lair of The White Worm | Lord James D'Ampton | |
| 1988 | Remando al Viento | Lord Byron | |
| 1988 | La Nuit Bengali | Allan | |
| 1988 | Nocturnes | Chopin | |
| 1988 | The Dawning | Harry | |
| 1989 | Judith Krantz's Till We Meet Again | Bruno | |
| 1989 | Champagne Charlie | Charles Heidsieck | |
| 1990 | The Big Man | Gordon | |
| 1991 | Our Sons | James | |
| 1991 | Impromptu | Chopin | |
| 1992 | Bitter Moon | Nigel | |
| 1993 | The Remains of the Day | Cardinal | |
| 1993 | Night Train to Venice | Martin Gamil | |
| 1994 | Sirens | Anthony Campion | |
| 1994 | Four Weddings and a Funeral | Charles | Golden Globe - Won - Best Actor |
| 1995 | An Awfully Big Adventure | Meredith Potter | |
| 1995 | The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain | Reginald Anson | |
| 1995 | Nine Months | Samuel Faulkner | |
| 1995 | Sense and Sensibility | Edward Ferrars | |
| 1995 | Restoration | Elias Finn | |
| 1996 | Extreme Measures | Dr. Guy Luthan | |
| 1999 | Notting Hill | William Thacker | |
| 1999 | Mickey Blue Eyes | Michael Felgate | |
| 2000 | Small Time Crooks | David | |
| 2001 | Bridget Jones's Diary | Daniel Cleaver | |
| 2002 | About a Boy | Will Freeman | |
| 2002 | Two Weeks Notice | George Wade | |
| 2003 | Love Actually | The Prime Minister | |
| 2004 | [[Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason]] | Daniel Cleaver | |
| 2006 | American Dreamz | Martin Tweed | |
| 2006 | Music and Lyrics By | ||
| 2008 | American Dog |
See also
- Working Title Films - production company behind many of Grant's best-known films.
- [[Sunset and Divine: The British Experience]] aka Nine Minutes (1996) by Ron Jeremy. With Mark Davis as Hugh and Divine Brown as herself .
References and footnotes
External links
- [Hugh Grant Biography]
- [Working Title]
- [A Yahoo! Hugh Grant fan group]
- [The BBC's report on the Elton John dinner auction]
- [Hugh Grant] bio and news.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.