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[h3]Americans know him as the limping, misanthropic doctor in House, but English audiences have known him far longer and in far less flattering roles. Hugh Laurie’s early persona turned on lampooning his posh Oxbridge upbringing, playing the quintessential upper-crust twit for much of his fledgling career. A series of moves towards the dramatic, however, but always with the mordant wit in tow, have seen the gangly comedian make the transition to serious actor and stardom in Hollywood.[/h3]

Laurie was born James Hugh Calum Laurie to parents Patricia and W.G.R.M. Laurie. Known as “Ran”, Laurie’s father was a medical doctor and a champion rower who won gold at the 1948 London Olympics in the coxless pairs. Patricia was a housewife and wrote essays published in The Times. Hugh was the fourth of four children with an older brother and two older sisters. Laurie received a first class education at the Dragon School, a prestigious Oxford preparatory school, and then at Eton.

At Eton Hugh excelled at rowing, winning the national junior coxed pairs title and representing Britain at the 1977 Junior World Championships. Laurie went to university at Selwyn College, Cambridge in 1978, to study anthropology and archaeology but a bout of glandular fever prevented him from making the Cambridge crew for the annual rowing race against Oxford University. The break from rowing due to illness led Laurie to join the Cambridge Footlights, a theatre group that has launched many successful comedy careers.

In the Footlights Laurie met fellow future-star [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/2210:0/Emma_Thompson.htm]Emma Thompson[/urlnew] and the two dated. Through Thompson, Laurie met Stephen Fry, a young playwright whose comedy Latin! had greatly impressed Laurie. The two became friends and would become partners in comedy for much of their early careers. In 1980 Laurie achieved his goal of rowing for Cambridge, only narrowly losing to Oxford in a hard-fought race. The same year, with Laurie as president of Footlights and Thompson as vice-president, the troop went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and won the prestigious Perrier Award for their revue show Cellar Tapes. The hit show was taken to the West End and then was filmed for television. On the strength of Cellar Tapes, which was largely written by Laurie and Fry, the pair, Thompson, and several others including Robbie Coltrane and Ben Elton were hired to write and perform a sketch show for television. Laurie would later tell an interviewer he became an actor when “a man with a Bentley and a long cigar turned up from London and said ‘Do you want to do this (acting) for a living?’’. The show, Alfresco, debuted in 1983.

Alfresco was followed by a string of TV comedies in the mid-1980s with Laurie gaining either writing or acting credits, or both, and steadily building a reputation as one of Britain’s brightest funny men. In 1984 he appeared in the cult TV comedy The Young Ones and two years later, debuted in the show he would become a mainstay in.
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Blackadder, the brainchild of Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, was in its second series when Laurie appeared in two episodes in 1986. The following year Laurie appeared in Blackadder the Third for the entire season. Playing on his posh accent and foppish good looks, Laurie’s portrayal of the simpering idiot George, the Prince Regent, to Atkinson’s conniving and bitter butler Blackadder caught the public’s attention and typecast him as an upper-class twit for years to come.

1987 also saw Laurie team up with his old university collaborator Stephen Fry. The two launched their sketch show A Bit of Fry and Laurie which showcased their intelligent, dry and off-beat humour. The show ran for eight years and made the pair household names in Britain.

In 1989 Laurie married Jo Green, a theatre administrator who he is still married to. That year he also returned to another full season of Blackadder with Blackadder Goes Forth. This time with the team in the trenches of World War One, Laurie reprised his bumbling aristocratic role as the ever optimistic Lieutenant The Honourable George Colthurst St. Bartleigh MC, a Cambridge student who had interrupted his studies to join the war.

The following year saw Laurie and Stephen Fry in the series Jeeves and Wooster, a comedy adapted from P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories about a convivial but brainless young gentleman (Laurie, of course) who is helped out of various tricky situations by his ingenious butler Jeeves (Fry). The show ran for four series until 1993.

The mid-1990s saw Laurie branch out into films, music and writing. He moved away from his bumbling fool roles appearing in Ang Lee’s adaptation of Sense and Sensibility alongside Emma Thompson in 1995, and voiced a number of characters in children’s films like The Snow Queen’s Revenge and The Ugly Duckling. In 1996 he played a clumsy villain in 101 Dalmatians in addition to publishing his first novel, The Paper Soldier, a thriller. In 1997, Laurie appeared in the films The Borrowers and the [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/2215:0/The_Spice_Girls.htm]Spice Girls[/urlnew] vehicle, Spice World, with a small role in the [urlnew=http://www.thebiographychannel.co.uk/biography_home/1581:0/Leonardo_DiCaprio.htm]Leonardo DiCaprio[/urlnew] blockbuster The Man in the Iron Mask the following year.

The children’s film Stuart Little was a hit in 1999 and he returned in its sequels in 2002 and 2005. Laurie returned to the small screen in 2003 directing and acting in the comedy-drama Fortysomething.

In 2004 he scored the role that would make him famous in the United States. Ditching his aristocratic British accent Laurie adopted an American drawl and scored the role of Dr Gregory House in the medical drama House. His limping, pain-killer addicted, cynical genius of a physician earned him Golden Globe awards in 2006 and 2007. In 2007 Laurie was also made an Officer of the British Empire.
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Laurie divides his time between London and West Hollywood where he films House. He and Jo have three children, a daughter, Rebecca, and two sons, Bill and Charlie. The children’s godfather is Laurie’s life-long friend Stephen Fry. Laurie, a massive fan of blues man Muddy Waters, describes himself as a “frustrated musician’’. He can play piano, guitar, drums, harmonica and saxophone and once told a radio interviewer his fantasy was to play in a jazz trio in out of the way hotels. Having missed the rock-star boat, Laurie consoles himself playing music with his children and in a band called Poor White Trash and The Little Big Horns with fellow performer Lenny Henry.

Though Laurie has led a successful and rather charmed life, he admits to struggling with depression for which he receives counseling. Laurie once told an interviewer he realised he had a problem when he found himself bored in a celebrity demolition derby. His dry, self-deprecating wit turned even this into a humourous line: “Boredom is not an appropriate response to exploding cars,” he said.

[i]Sam Carpenter[/i]
Hugh Laurie biography



- Hugh initially considered becoming a police man in Hong Kong before becoming an actor.

- Laurie made a citizen’s arrest on a robber when he was 18.

- Hugh only speaks in an American accent on the set of House.

- He keeps fit by boxing.

Hugh Laurie biography



Street Kings (2008)

"House M.D." (2004-2008) (TV)

The Big Empty (2005)

Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild (2005)

Valiant (2005)

The Tale of Jack Frost (2004) (TV)

Flight of the Phoenix (2004)

The Young Visiters (2003) (TV)

"Fortysomething" (2003)

Lost in the Snow (2002)

Stuart Little 2 (2002)

"Spooks" (2002) (TV)

Dragans of New York (2002) (TV)

Chica de Río (2001)

The Piano Tuner (2001)

Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001) (TV)

"Preston Pig" (2000) (TV)

"Dominion" (2000) (TV)

Maybe Baby (2000)

Carnivale (2000)

The Journal of Edwin Carp (2000) (voice)

"Little Grey Rabbit" (2000) (TV) (voice)

Lounge Act (2000) (voice)

The Nearly Complete and Utter History of Everything (1999) (TV)

Blackadder Back & Forth (1999)

Stuart Little (1999)

Santa's Last Christmas (1999) (TV) (voice)

Cousin Bette (1998)

The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)

Spice World (1997)

The Borrowers (1997)

The Place of Lions (1997) (TV)

The Ugly Duckling (1997) (voice)

101 Dalmatians (1996)

The Snow Queen's Revenge (1996) (voice)

The Best of Tracey Takes On... (1996) (TV)

Sense and Sensibility (1995)

"A Bit of Fry and Laurie" (1987-1995) (TV)

The Snow Queen (1995)

The Adventures of Mole (1995) (TV)

A Pin for the Butterfly (1994)

All or Nothing at All (1993) (TV)

"Jeeves and Wooster" (1990-1993) (TV)

Peter's Friends (1992)

"Blackadder Goes Forth" (1989) (TV)

Strapless (1989)

"The New Statesman" (1989) (TV)

"Les Girls" (1988) (TV)

Blackadder: The Cavalier Years (1988) (TV)

Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988) (TV)

"Blackadder the Third" (1987) (TV)

The Laughing Prisoner (1987) (TV)

"Filthy Rich & Catflap" (1987)

Up Line (1987) (TV)

"Girls on Top" (1986) (TV)

"Blackadder II" (1986) (TV)

"Happy Families" (1985) (TV)

Plenty (1985)

"The Young Ones" (1984) (TV)

"A Bit of Fry and Laurie" (1987-1995)

"Alfresco" (1983) (TV)

Cambridge Footlights Revue (1982)
Hugh Laurie biography

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