Hugh Grant Life Story

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Hugh John Mungo Grant (born September 9, 1960) is an English actor, 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.

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. 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 (of which he told E! Online, “It’s very weird to be kissing an icon,”), 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.

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 an aspiring teen sensation played by Drew Barrymore. He also starred in American Dreamz, a satire on reality TV shows featuring Dennis Quaid. He is engaged to British heiress Jemima Goldsmith, Grant has never acted on the London stage.

In 1996, Grant won substantial damages from News (UK) Ltd over what his lawyers called a “highly defamatory” article published in January 1995. The company’s now-defunct newspaper, Today, had falsely claimed that Grant verbally abused a young extra with a “foul-mouthed tongue lashing” on the set of The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.

On 27 April 2007, Grant accepted undisclosed damages from the Associated Newspapers over claims made about his relationships with his former girlfriends in three separate tabloid articles, which were published in the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday on 18, 21 and 24 February. His lawyer stated that all of the articles’ “allegations and factual assertions are false.” Grant said, in a written statement, that he took the action because: “I was tired of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday papers publishing almost entirely fictional articles about my private life for their own financial gain.” He went on to take the opportunity to stress, “I’m also hoping that this statement in court might remind people that the so-called ‘close friends’ or ‘close sources’ on which these stories claim to be based almost never exist.”

In April 2007, Grant was arrested on allegations of assault made by paparazzo Ian Whittaker. Grant made no official statement and did not comment on the incident. Charges were dropped on 1 June by the Crown Prosecution Service on the grounds of “insufficient evidence.”

In 1987, while playing Lord Byron in a Spanish production called Remando Al Viento (1988), Grant met actress Elizabeth Hurley, who was cast in a supporting role as Byron’s former lover Claire Clairmont. Grant started dating the aspiring model while shooting and since 1994, their relationship was the subject of much media attention. After 13 years together, the two made “a mutual and amicable decision” to split in May 2000.

In 2004, he began dating socialite Jemima Khan under the intense scrutiny of British tabloids. Three years later, in February 2007, Grant’s publicist announced that the couple had “decided to split amicably.” The spokesman added, “Hugh has nothing but positive things to say about Jemima.”

Grant is a supporter of Marie Curie Cancer Care, whose Great Daffodil Appeal he promoted in March 2008. A famous “golfing addict”, Grant is a scratch golfer and is a regular at pro-am tournaments with membership at the Sunningdale Golf Club. He is also frequently pictured by the paparazzi at the famed Scottish golf courses in St Andrews, Kingsbarns and Carnoustie.

Highly competitive, he reportedly plays with a lot of money at stake. As a young boy, he played rugby union on his school’s first XV team at centre and played football as an avid fan of Fulham F.C.. He is also a fan of Scottish side Rangers F.C. thanks to his grandfather who was Scottish. He continued to play in a Sunday-morning football league in south-west London after college and remains an “impassioned Fulham supporter.”Grant’s other interests include snooker and tennis.

Hugh Grant went to Hogarth Primary School – Chiswick, then St Peters Primary School – Hammersmith and then latymer Upper School – Hammersmith.