Hugh Grant

Hugh John Mungo Grant (born 9 September 1960) is an English actor. He won a Golden Globe award in 1995 for his starring role in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. His other movies include: Nine Months, Notting Hill, Mickey Blue Eyes, Bridget Jones's Diary, About a Boy, Love Actually and Paddington 2.

Early life and ancestry 
Grant was born at Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith, London, the second son of Fynvola Susan MacLean (b. Wickham, Hampshire, 11 October 1933; d. Hounslow, London, July 2001) and Captain James Murray Grant (b. 1929). Grant's grandfather, Colonel James Murray Grant,DSO was decorated for bravery and leadership at Saint-Valery-en-Caux during World War II.

Grant's father was trained at Sandhurst, Berkshire and served with the Seaforth Highlanders for eight years in Malaya, Germany and Scotland. He ran a carpet firm, pursued hobbies such as golf and painting watercolours, and raised his family in Chiswick, west London, where the Grants lived next to Arlington Park Mansions on Sutton Lane. His mother worked as a schoolteacher and taught Latin, French and music for more than 30 years in the state schools of west London. She died at the age of 65, 18 months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Education 
Grant started his education at Hogarth Primary School in Chiswick but then moved to St Peter's Primary School in Hammersmith, Grant was then educated at an independent prep school Wetherby School. From 1969 to 1978, he attended the independent Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith on a scholarship and played 1st XV rugby, cricket and football for the school. 

In 1979, Grant won the Galsworthy scholarship to New College, Oxford where he starred in his first film, Privileged, produced by the Oxford University Film Foundation. He studied English literature and graduated with 2:1 honours. Actress Anna Chancellor, who met Grant while she was still at school, has recalled, "I first met Hugh at a party at Oxford. There was something magical about him. He was a star even then, without having done anything. Grant joined the exclusive Piers Gaveston Society at Oxford, a group with a reputation for debauchery and decadence."

Viewing acting as nothing more than a creative outlet, he joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society and starred in a successful touring production of Twelfth Night.

Screen roles 
Grant has mostly been a comedy (especially a romantic comedy) actor for almost all of his mainstream film career. He also never ventures to play characters who are not British. While some film critics, such as Roger Ebert, have defended the limited variety of his performances, others have dismissed him as a one-trick pony. Eric Fellner, co-owner of Working Title Films and a long-time collaborator of Grant, said, "His range hasn't been fully tested, but each performance is unique."  A majority of Grant's popular films in the 1990s followed a similar plot that captured an optimistic bachelor experiencing a series of embarrassing incidents to find true love, often with an American woman.

Other websites 

 
 Biography 
 The BBC's report on the Elton John dinner auction
 E! Online interview 

Actors from London
BAFTA Award winning actors
English movie actors
English television actors
Golden Globe Award winning actors
1960 births
Living people