Born Hugh John Mungo Grant in London in 1960, Hugh Grant has made a name for himself as an actor playing roles as the quintessential Englishman – floppy-fringed, well-spoken, introverted and awkward in his own skin. Smooth in appearance and blessed with finely-tuned comic timing, Hugh was often hailed as a "Cary Grant for the Nineties."

Grant’s father was an artist and carpet salesman, his mother was a teacher. An Oxford graduate, he starred under the name Hughie Grant in the Oxford financed movie Privilege in 1982.

Grant formed his own comedy sketch troupe the Jockeys Of Norfolk before landing himself a bit-part in 1987’s ex-pat-toffs-in-1940’s-Kenya murder mystery White Mischief.

That same year, Grant won a Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival for his part as a homosexual in love with one of his Cambridge classmates in Merchant Ivory’s adaptation of the EM Forster novel Maurice.

A quiet few years followed until 1992, when Grant popped up as, who would have guessed it, a floppy-fringed and awkward Englishman in Roman Polanski’s Bitter Moon. An erotically charged story, it sees Grant and his wife (played by Kristin Scott-Thomas) on a cruise where they meet a crippled American and his sexy French wife.

A year later Grant showed up again with a bit-part in Merchant Ivory’s Remains Of The Day. Then in 1994 his Hollywood worthy status was cemented with the Brit-comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral. A huge box-office smash, it saw Grant turning the dithering, bumbling Englishman into a sex symbol.

Follow-up Sirens saw Grant as an uptight English minister who goes to Australia to tackle artist Sam Neil about the sexual content of his paintings. With hilarious consequences!

Hugh’s newfound fame took a knock the following year when he was arrested for soliciting the services of LA prostitute Divine Brown. He was fined $1,180 and given two year’s probation. Suddenly the perfect English gent was fallible. Then girlfriend, model/actress Elizabeth Hurley was not amused.

The box-office takings for Hugh’s next few films took a dip – playing an expectant father in the comedy Nine Months and a doctor in a medical thriller Extreme measures.

Things picked up again in 1999 with the Brit-comedy Notting Hill, starring Julia Roberts and the gangster comedy Mickey Blue Eyes, starring James Caan – where Grant is an awkward Englishman mistaken for a Mafia man.

In a slight change of pace, Grant has added the English cad to his repertoire, albeit with a floppy fringe. In 2000, he was a smarmy conman in Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks. Then in 2001’s hugely successful
Bridget Jones’ Diary (and 2004’s follow-up The Edge Of Reason) he was the dastardly Daniel Cleaver.

In 2002’a successful About A Boy, he is impressive as cynical, immature bachelor Will (no floppy fringe this time) while back in Brit-comic mode he is the Prime Minister who gets the girl in slushy Richard Curtis comedy, Love Actually.

With his career showing no signs of slowing, Grant is due to star this year in Music and Lyrics By as a washed-up singer given a couple of days to write a hit for aspiring teen sensation Drew Barrymore.

There’s also American Dreamz, a satire on reality TV shows starring Dennis Quaid.

Still unmarried, Grant was once rumoured to have been engaged to girlfriend Jemima Khan, daughter of late tycoon Sir James Goldsmith and ex-wife of cricket star Imran Khan.


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