Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie CBE (/ˈlɒri/; born 11 June 1959) is an English actor, comedian, writer, and musician. He first gained recognition for his work as one half of the comedy double act Fry and Laurie with Stephen Fry. The two acted together in a number of projects during the 1980s and 1990s, including the BBC sketch comedy series A Bit of Fry & Laurie and the P. G. Wodehouse adaptation Jeeves and Wooster. From 1986 to 1989 he appeared in three series of the period comedy Blackadder, first as a guest star in the last two episodes of Blackadder II, before joining the main cast in Blackadder the Third, and going on to appear in Blackadder Goes Forth and many specials.
Hugh Laurie
- Actor
- author
- comedian
- director
- musician
- singer
- producer
1981–present
3
- Ran Laurie (father)
- Vocals
- piano
- guitar
- harmonica
- drums
- saxophone
From 2004 to 2012, Laurie starred as Dr. Gregory House on the Fox medical drama series House. He received two Golden Globe Awards and many other accolades for the role. He was listed in the 2011 Guinness World Records as the most watched leading man on television and was one of the highest-paid actors in a television drama at the time, earning $409,000 (£250,000) per episode.[1][2] By the end of the series, he was earning $700,000 an episode.[3] His other television credits include appearing in the London-based Friends episode, "The One with Ross's Wedding" (1998), starring as arms dealer Richard Onslow Roper in the miniseries The Night Manager (2016), for which he won his third Golden Globe and playing Senator Tom James in the HBO sitcom Veep (2012–2019), for which he received his 10th Emmy Award nomination.
Laurie has appeared in films, Peter's Friends (1992), Sense and Sensibility (1995), 101 Dalmatians (1996), The Borrowers (1997), The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), Stuart Little (1999), Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001), Flight of the Phoenix (2004), Arthur Christmas (2011) in which he voiced Steven Claus, and The Personal History of David Copperfield (2020).[4]
Outside of acting, Laurie released the blues albums Let Them Talk (2011) and Didn't It Rain (2013), both to favourable reviews. He wrote the novel The Gun Seller (1996). He was appointed OBE in the 2007 New Year Honours and CBE in the 2018 New Year Honours, both for services to drama.[5]
Early life[edit]
Laurie was born on 11 June 1959, in the Blackbird Leys area of Oxford,[6][7] the youngest of four children of Patricia (née Laidlaw) and William George Ranald Mundell "Ran" Laurie, who was a physician and winner of an Olympic gold medal in the coxless pairs (rowing) at the 1948 London Games.[7][8] He has an older brother, Charles Alexander Lyon Mundell Laurie,[7] and two older sisters, Susan and Janet.[9][10] He had a strained relationship with his mother,[7][11] whom he noted as "Presbyterian by character, by mood".[7] He later said, "I was frustration to her. She didn't like me."[7] His mother died from motor neurone disease in 1989, at the age of 73. According to Laurie, she endured the disease for two years and suffered "painful, plodding paralysis" while being cared for by Laurie's father, whom he has called "the sweetest man in the whole world".[10]
Laurie's parents, who were both of Scottish descent, attended St Columba's Presbyterian Church (now United Reformed Church)[12] in Oxford.[13][14] He notes that "belief in God didn't play a large role" in his home, but "a certain attitude to life and the living of it did".[7] He followed this by stating, "Pleasure was something that was treated with great suspicion, pleasure was something that... I was going to say it had to be earned but even the earning of it didn't really work. It was something to this day, I mean, I carry that with me. I find pleasure a difficult thing; I don't know what you do with it, I don't know where to put it."[7] He later stated, "I don't believe in God, but I have this idea that if there were a God, or destiny of some kind looking down on us, that if he saw you taking anything for granted, he'd take it away."[15]
Laurie was brought up in Oxford and attended the Dragon School from ages seven to 13, later stating, "I was, in truth, a horrible child. Not much given to things of a 'bookey' nature, I spent a large part of my youth smoking Number Six and cheating in French vocabulary tests."[16] He went on to Eton College, which he described as "the most private of private schools".[7] He arrived at Selwyn College, Cambridge, in 1978,[17] which he says he attended "as a result of family tradition" since his father went there.[7] Laurie notes that his father was a successful rower at Cambridge and that he was "trying to follow in [his] father's footsteps".[7] He studied archaeology and anthropology, specialising in social anthropology,[18] and graduated with third-class honours in 1981.[19]
Like his father, Laurie rowed at school and university.[7] In 1977, he was a member of the junior coxed pair that won the British national title before representing Britain's Youth Team at the 1977 Junior World Rowing Championships. In 1980, Laurie and his rowing partner, J.S. Palmer, were runners-up in the Silver Goblets[20] coxless pairs for Eton Vikings rowing club. He also achieved a Blue while taking part in the 1980 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.[21] Cambridge lost that year by five feet.[22] During this time, Laurie was training for up to eight hours a day and was on course to become an Olympic-standard rower.[23] He is a member of the Leander Club, one of the oldest rowing clubs in the world, and was a member of the Hermes Club and Hawks' Club.[7]
Personal life[edit]
Laurie married theatre administrator Jo Green on 16 June 1989 in the Camden area of London.[56] They have three children, Charlie, Bill, and Rebecca.[57] Laurie's elder son Charlie played a small role as baby William in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, during a sketch titled "Special Squad". His daughter Rebecca had a role in the film Wit as five-year-old Vivian Bearing. Stephen Fry, Laurie's best friend and long-time comedy partner, was the best man at his wedding and is the godfather of his children.[58]
While appearing on Inside the Actors Studio in 2006, he discussed his struggles with severe clinical depression.[7] He told host James Lipton that he first concluded he had a problem whilst driving in a charity demolition derby, during which he realised that seeing two cars collide and explode made him feel bored rather than excited or frightened; he quipped that "boredom is not an appropriate response to exploding cars".[7] As of 2006 he was having regular sessions with a psychotherapist.[7][11]
Laurie admires the writings of P. G. Wodehouse, explaining in a 27 May 1999 article in The Daily Telegraph how reading Wodehouse novels had saved his life.[59] In an interview also in The Daily Telegraph, he confirmed that he is an atheist.[60] He is an avid motorcycle enthusiast and has two motorbikes, one at his London home and one at his Los Angeles home. His bike in the U.S. is a Triumph Bonneville, his self-proclaimed "feeble attempt to fly the British flag".[61]
In June 2013, Laurie was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, where he chose tracks from Joe Cocker, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Randy Newman, Professor Longhair, Son House, Nina Simone, Lester Young–Buddy Rich Trio, and Van Morrison as his eight favourite discs.[62] This was his second appearance on the show, having previously been on a 1996 episode, where he chose tracks by Muddy Waters, Max Bruch, the Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra with Count Basie, Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Van Morrison.[63]
Laurie is a supporter of Arsenal FC.[64]
Recognition[edit]
Laurie has won three Golden Globe Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and has been nominated for 10 Primetime Emmy Awards.[65][66]
On 23 May 2007, Laurie was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama in the 2007 New Year Honours.[67][68][69][70] He was promoted to Commander of the same Order (CBE) for his services to drama in the 2018 New Year Honours.[71]
In March 2012, Laurie was made an Honorary Fellow of his alma mater Selwyn College, Cambridge.[72][73]
In October 2016, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[74]
