Hugh Laurie: The Biography

by Anthony Bunko

Overview

Hugh was born in Oxford, and his father, WGRM 'Ran' Laurie, was a doctor who won a gold medal in the coxless pairs at the 1948 OlympiME. Hugh followed in his father's footsteps as a rower at Cambridge, but when he was forced to hang up his oars he joined the famous Cambridge Footlights and there began a career in comedy. It was at university that he met Stephen Fry, and the pair forged a hilarious partnership that continued through the 1980s and 1990s. Hugh has also enjoyed great success on the big screen; starring in Sense and Sensibility, 101 Dalmatians, Monsters vs Aliens and the three Stuart Little films. But it is the character of irascible doctor Gregory House, in the US TV drama House, that has brought global fame. He has won two Golden Globes for the role and received a prestigious Emmy nominations in 2005, and continues to receive critical acclaim for his performance in the show - especially for his near-perfect American accent. With worldwide fame and an OBE to his name, Hugh Laurie is undoubtedly one of Britain's best-loved actors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781843583646
Publisher:	Bonnier Books UK
Publication date:	10/01/2011
Pages:	271
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Anthony Bunko is the author of several comedy fiction novels, including The Tale of the Shagging Monkeys, and a book of visual poetry called Working up to the Slaughterhouse. He also collaborated with Stereophonics star Stuart Cable on his autobiography, Demons and Cocktails.

Read an Excerpt

Hugh Laurie

The Biography

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By Anthony Bunko

John Blake Publishing Ltd

Copyright © 2010 Anthony Bunko
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84358-661-6

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CHAPTER 1

'COMFORT WAS THE WORK OF THE DEVIL'

Hugh's father, Dr William George Ranald Mundell Laurie, or 'Ran' Laurie as he was known in his early life, was definitely a hard act to follow. Born in Grantchester, Cambridgeshire, in 1915, Ran seemed destined for greatness. With oodles of drive, dedication and passion he began rowing as a hobby at Monkton Combe School and continued in the tough sport at Selwyn College, Cambridge, in 1933.

All his hard work paid off and his sporting career went from strength to strength. He went on to row in the famous Oxford v Cambridge Boat Race in 1934 and then again 1935 and 1936, winning all three. In the boat alongside him was Jack Wilson, who later became his rowing partner.

AP McEldowney, the chronicler of Selwyn College rowing and founder of the UL Boat Club commented on Ran Laurie: 'There arrived at Selwyn a freshman who was not only the most famous oarsman Selwyn ever had, but also one of the most famous Great Britain ever had – WGRM Laurie. And we can truly claim him as a Selwyn oarsman.'

After university, the athletic Laurie was selected to row in the 1936 Olympics – in front of Adolf Hitler in Berlin – as the Stroke (the rower who sits nearest the coxswain and sets the tempo for the other rowers) in Great Britain's eight. The team eventually finished in fourth place, just missing out on a medal. Together, Ran and Jack Wilson put their disappointment behind them and went on to row for the Leander Club, one of the oldest rowing clubs in the world, winning the Silver Goblets at Henley Royal Regatta in 1938.

Of course when the Second World War broke out, Ran's sporting career was interrupted. He was posted to the Sudan and spent the next ten years there, eventually becoming a district commissioner. It was in the Sudan that he also met and fell head over heels in love with Patricia Laidlaw. The couple got married in 1944.

After the war ended, Ran and Wilson returned briefly to Henley in 1948, once again winning the Silver Goblets at the Regatta. The 'Desert Rats', as the two became known because of their sojourn in the Sudan, followed the success up a month later by winning the gold medal in the coxless pairs event at the 1948 Olympics, which was staged on their familiar Henley course in London.

Hugh's father described the final as 'A thoroughly satisfactory race. It was the best row we ever had and we finished about a length ahead of the Swiss, with the Italians two or more behind them, and we had a bit in hand.' Four days after the race, his wife Pat gave birth to their second daughter.

According to the people who know about the sport of rowing, Laurie and Wilson are still rated the best pair of their generation and it wasn't until 1988 that a young Steve Redgrave and Andy Holmes matched their achievement by winning the Olympic title in Seoul. Indeed, the boat Laurie and Wilson used is now on show at the River and Rowing Museum at Henley-on-Thames, hanging above the boat used by Redgrave and Pinsent when they won the 1996 Olympics.

Incredibly, Hugh was almost a teenager before he discovered that his father had actually won the gold medal for rowing in the coxless pairs at the London Olympics. 'I didn't even know about it until I was around 12. I remember I went fishing with my mother on a lake, or the loch, as they call it in Scotland. We got into this boat and my dad took the oars and I remember at this moment I rather anxiously said to Mother, "Does he know how to row?"'

A while later the inquisitive young boy was rummaging around in the attic of the family home when he came across an old cardboard box hidden in a dark corner. In it was an old sock with something heavy in it. Hugh pulled out the object which, unbelievably, turned out to be an Olympic gold medal wrapped up in old rags. 'But then I found this medal. Hey! What the hell is this? Very odd. Although it wasn't actually gold because this was the first post-war Olympics, and gold, like a lot of things, was in very short supply. It was gold leaf over tin.' He was shocked, but it was a pleasing discovery.

Hugh still can't believe how modest his father was about his achievements. 'There were no frames, no glass cases, in fact hardly any rowing memorabilia was on show in the house. It was astounding humility of a sort that people would barely comprehend nowadays. Humility was a cult in my family. I sometimes wish he would blow his own trumpet a bit more, but I agree with him that modesty is important. You need to be realistic about yourself, not to think that what you are and what you do matters more than it does. Conceit is definitely a bad thing.'

Nowadays, a framed photograph of Ran Laurie and Jack Wilson receiving their medals takes pride of place over Hugh's desk in the house he shares with his wife Jo and their children Charlie, Bill, and Rebecca.

Hugh said about the fantastic photograph of the two sportsmen receiving their medals on the pontoon at Henley, 'I imagine they were playing the national anthem, Jack is loose-limbed and grooving and looks like he should be mixing a martini, and my father is very rigid, standing to attention. I sometimes wished my father could take that pleasure in himself. These were two really remarkable men. Tough, modest, generous and I like to think without the slightest thought of personal gain throughout their entire lives. A vanished breed, I honestly believe.'

What he also found astonishing about his father's rowing success was how it didn't seem to change him at all. 'Years later, I remember him as a halfway mark umpire at Wallington Regatta, sitting under a square yard of canvas in blistering heat the entire day with his Thermos and cheese sandwich at his feet while glossier men gave prizes in the enclosure and rode in the launch. He'd got a lot from rowing and this was the giving back. Yet saying that makes him sound pious, as if sitting there all day was a self-consciously virtuous act, which isn't right at all. There was no sense of virtue about him. But by golly he was virtuous.'

Years later Hugh recalls going out with his old man on the river to pick up some rowing tips. 'I rowed with him. We'd sometimes go out on a boat together. He was ferociously strong, a very powerful force to behold.'

Years after winning his Olympic gold medal Ran, together with Patricia and their two daughters, returned to the UK where he set about getting a job to support his family. Hugh explained: 'So he came back at 40 with a science degree, thinking, "Well, what am I going to do now?" and with two kids, he enrolled in medical school with a bunch of 19-year-olds.' Hugh is amazed at how well his father adapted. 'It's unthinkable now, but there were so many instances after the war of people who beat Rommel in North Africa and then went back to sell insurance or completely retrain and have whole new lives.'

And retrain was exactly what Ran did. In 1954 Hugh's father qualified as a doctor, working for 30 years as a general practitioner in Blackbird Leys, the council estate built to house the workers at British Leyland's Cowley plant near Oxford.

Laurie remembers the odd occasion he went out with his father while he was doing his doctor's rounds. 'I went on house calls with him,' Hugh explained, with a wry smirk. 'Usually I would sit in the car while he was inside lancing a boil or whatever. I mostly remember being at home answering the phone for him. This was in the days before answering machines. Being my father's son, I sounded like him, and before I could say, "This isn't the doctor," they would jump in and say, "Doctor, thank God! It's all exploded. I can't stop it." And with no obvious juncture for me to step out of the way, I would, you know ... let's just say I'd reassure them. You're an adolescent. You're craving attention. "Well, it sounds like you're doing the right thing there," I'd say. Or, "Oh yes, it will probably be all right. Call back if the swelling worsens." As far as I remember, I never lost any patients.'

Nowadays, Hugh feels guilty that he is paid more for one episode playing a fake doctor than most real doctors earn in several years. 'It's a peculiar aspect of what I do. I often think about my father who was a physician and how strange it is that I am better rewarded for faking this job than he ever was for doing the real thing. Go figure. It doesn't seem right. He certainly treated more patients in an average week than I do.'

He added, 'My dad was such a good doctor and believed passionately in the Hippocratic Oath. He was a very gentle soul. If every son in some way is trying to live up to his father it is irksome. But here I am prancing around with three days of stubble because the part calls for it and faking being a doctor when my father was the real thing and a very good one at that.'

Even with his busy medical practice and family life, Ran remained active in the rowing establishment. He was a steward at Henley, a selector for the ARA (Amateur Rowing Association, now British Rowing) and became president of the Leander Club, among many other things. In his spare time he chaired the Oxford Committee of The Duke of Edinburgh's Award between 1959 and 1969 and the Oxford branch of Save the Children from 1986 to 1989. He was so well thought of in the local community that in 2005, it was proposed that a newly refurbished health centre in Blackbird Leys be named after him. Sadly it wasn't to be, and instead it was named The Leys when it opened a year later.

Hugh's mother, Patricia, was a housewife and on occasions wrote essays about her life as the wife of a district commissioner in the Sudan. Some of the short stories were published by The Times.

'I must say,' Hugh said proudly, 'I was surprised by how good the stories were. You spend so long thinking of your mother as the provider of socks and toast and Marmite. I suppose all children grow up with that egocentricity. But that makes it hard to imagine her having a life of her own. To think she could have got on perfectly well had you never existed.'

The couple had two daughters and one son before James Hugh Calum Laurie came along on 11 June in Oxford, England in 1959.

Although Hugh's first name is James, he has never used it. His third name, Calum, is the short form of Mael Calum, which translates from Gaidhlig (Scottish Gaelic) and in English means Malcolm. His brother's full name is Charles Alexander Lyon Mundell Laurie, and Charles now works as a lawyer and shepherd in Scotland.

Alongside his older brother and sisters, Hugh grew up in Oxford, known as the 'city of dreaming spires', with an estimated population of just under 165,000. It is a picturesque city, famous for having the oldest university in the English-speaking world.

From an early age Hugh always looked up to his siblings, mainly because they were so much older than him. He was six years younger than his brother. 'They seem to be rather more grounded, well, wiser,' Hugh has commented. 'To me, they had all the answers. I felt I was the only one who had problems. Their version of things is that it was all ice cream for me,' he said. 'I don't know which of us is right. I don't remember being hideously indulged, but my siblings might tell you a different story. I was sort of an only child, because I was so much the youngest, sort of alone.'

Being 'alone', as he describes it, led Hugh to develop a vivid fantasy life, which he says made it extremely easy to imagine himself in other lives. It's something which still accompanies him today and he says he doesn't know what he would do without it.

With both his parents being of Scottish descent and members of their local Presbyterian church, it was only natural that Hugh would be raised the same way. The Scottish Presbyterian religion is known for having an ethic of strictness and self-denial and in Hugh's household, run-of-the-mill things like television and films were a rare treat. And Presbyterian values have stayed with him. 'I had a wonderful if uneventful upbringing,' said Hugh. 'My parents were very loving, but there's no question they were suspicious of ease and comfort. My mother was the first person I can think of who was into the idea of recycling. In about 1970, she was collecting newspapers from the whole village, baling them up and taking them to a paper mill. She'd get a shilling a half ton or something.'

One newspaper reporter once asked a glum-looking Laurie why he rarely looked happy and as quick as a flash he replied, 'Scottish Presbyterians are not supposed to look happy.'

Even today his strict upbringing clashes strongly with his current 'Hollywood' lifestyle. To try to compensate, he often denies himself the small pleasures of life. For example, when he bought a new car, he chose the only one in the showroom without central locking and electronic windows. 'It's odd, but I chose the only one with manual everything,' he recalls. 'In fact, I think it's called the Volkswagen Presbyterian. It drives my wife mad having to lean over to lock every door and close every window.'

Hugh has since become an atheist, and being truthful as always, has said the religious aspect of his life has never meant much to him. 'I admire the music, buildings and ethics of religion but I come unstuck on the God thing. 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.'

One thing he did inherit from his Scottish roots was the wearing of kilts, which he still does with pride when the right occasion comes along. Quite unusual for a boy who was born and raised in the south of England.

Hugh's upbringing may have been strict at times, but he sometimes wishes he had a tougher upbringing – perhaps one similar to the teenage life experienced by his writing partner Stephen Fry. But behind the façade of his 'cosy' existence, Hugh's life did have its problems, and one major issue was with his mother. 'And she with me,' he said. They had a somewhat strained relationship, and Hugh found it a constant battle to live up to her high expectations and to deal with the 'heavyweight unhappiness' which marked his teens.

'I was an awkward and frustrating child,' he says. 'She had very high expectations of me, which I constantly disappointed. She had moments of not liking me. When I say moments I use the word broadly to cover months. She was contemptuous of the goal of happiness, of contentment, ease, comfort. She disliked even the word comfort.'

There were moments of kindness and good humour between them and times where she was a joy to be with, but from what he remembers it didn't last long. Maybe it was because with his father's involvement in work and sport she took on the role of the main disciplinarian in the household. Hugh felt she struggled to show him any affection. 'She could switch off. She would spend days, weeks, even months, nursing some grievance. I don't know if she was clinically depressed, but she certainly had mood swings. She used to get very angry with me. Actually, I think she found me a disappointment in many ways. It was much harder to get a tick in the box from my mother and I often felt she didn't like me. She had hostility to softness. She'd say, "Don't be so wet." I suppose I'm making it sound as if we were whipped every morning and sent on 20-mile runs. It wasn't like that. But you renounced things that made life more agreeable.'

It is the memory of these dark periods with his mother, rather than the lighter times with his father, which he uses to help him get into role when playing House. 'My character doesn't believe in softening the blow for patients,' he says. 'Humility was considered a great virtue in my family household. No show of complacency or self-satisfaction was ever tolerated. Patting yourself on the back was definitely not encouraged, and pleasure or pride would be punishable by death.'

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Hugh Laurie by Anthony Bunko. Copyright © 2010 Anthony Bunko. Excerpted by permission of John Blake Publishing Ltd.
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Table of Contents

Prologue: 'This is the sort of strong American actor I'm looking for!' ix

Part 1 From Cambridge to Wodehouse and beyond 1

Chapter 1 'Comfort was the work of the devil' 3

Chapter 2 'Lugubriously sexy, like a well-hung eel' 17

Chapter 3 'The BBC hated it…' 37

Chapter 4 'As thick as a whale omelette' 51

Chapter 5 'I think they were ahead of their time' 65

Chapter 6 'Canvas chairs with our names on the back' 79

Part 2 Losing's Hugh's virginity but finding Laurie's mind 97

Chapter 7 'I got my coat trapped in a car door' 99

Chapter 8 'I play the baddie. It's a good thing…' 115

Chapter 9 'It's Four Weddings and a Funeral with balls and a ****' 127

Chapter 10 'Height jokes were not well received' 139

Chapter 11 'I'm on my way back to misery' 153

Chapter 12 'A few bombs in the f***in' post' 173

Part 3 'Is there the son of a doctor in the House?' 187

Chapter 13 'So we gave him pain' 189

Chapter 14 'I'm just in a Ferrari of a role' 215

Chapter 15 'Rider at the Gates of Dawn' 233

Chapter 16 'Life outside of this bubble' 245

Appendix: Interesting facts 261

Filmography 267