(1960-)

Who Is Hugh Grant?

Hugh Grant was born on September 9, 1960, in London, England. The hit 1994 comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral earned him a Golden Globe Award and made him an international heartthrob. Grant was arrested with a Hollywood prostitute in 1995, but his career weathered the scandal, and he starred in subsequent hits like Bridget Jones’s Diary and Florence Foster Jenkins. Grant also published an article in 2011 that helped expose the phone-hacking practices by Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World newspaper.

Children

A consummate bachelor, Hugh Grant has been in a few long-term relationships but never married. He dated model and actress Elizabeth Hurley from 1986 to 2000 (the couple founded Simian Films together) and dated socialite heiress Jemima Khan for three years.

Grant later dated restaurant hostess Tinglan Hong, who gave birth to two of his children: daughter Tabitha (b. 2011) and son Felix (b. 2013). Around the same time he began seeing Swedish TV producer Anna Eberstein, who is mother to three of his children: son Mungo (b. 2012), a daughter (b. 2015) and another son (b. 2018).

The overlap between Hong and Eberstein’s pregnancies raised eyebrows, but Grant seemed quite happy with this chapter of his life.

“What has surprised me most is, I think, how enchanting I am as a father,” he told People during an interview in 2015. “I break my own heart, I’m so nice.”

Movies

‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’

Hugh Grant’s early films include his 1982 screen debut in Privileged and 1992’s Bitter Moon. Much of his early work went unnoticed except for the performance as a sexually conflicted Edwardian in Ismail Merchant and James Ivory’s Maurice, which won him a Best Actor award at the 1987 Venice Film Festival. It wasn’t until the release of the hit comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994 that the handsome actor became internationally known. His charming performance as a fool in love earned Grant a Best Actor Golden Globe.

In 1995, just before the actor’s U.S. film debut in Nine Months, with Julianne Moore, Grant was arrested for engaging in a lewd act in a parked car with Hollywood prostitute Divine Brown. The scandal and his mug shot instantly circulated through media outlets. It was followed by a contrite apology on The Tonight Show to then-girlfriend Hurley.

‘Sense and Sensibility,’ ‘Notting Hill’

The public disgrace did little to derail Hugh Grant’s career. He appeared in several successful films shortly thereafter, including the Ang Lee-helmed Sense and Sensibility in 1995 and another period piece, Restoration. He was firmly reinstated as one of Hollywood’s most charming leading men when he returned to romantic comedy with 1999’s Notting Hill, opposite Julia Roberts. That same year he also starred in the mafia comedy Mickey Blue Eyes.

‘Bridget Jones’s Diary,’ ‘About a Boy’

Subsequent box office hits such as 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, with Renee Zellweger, 2002’s About a Boy, based on the book by Nick Hornby, and 2003’s Love Actually also played to his comedic strengths. His 2007 film Music and Lyrics, with Drew Barrymore, received mixed reviews. Two years later he starred opposite Sarah Jessica Parker in the comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans?, which was panned by critics but became a box office success.

‘Florence Foster Jenkins,’ ‘Paddington 2’

While he continued appearing in films in both big and small roles, Grant made a huge impression in 2016 with the lighthearted biopic Florence Foster Jenkins, earning a Golden Globe nomination for his role opposite Meryl Streep. In 2017 Grant played villain Phoenix Buchanan in the live-action family film Paddington 2, an international hit. He followed with the role of Fletcher, a detective peddling his outlandish screenplay, in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen (2019).

TV Roles

Grant’s work has been predominantly in film, although he did have some small roles on television throughout the 1980s and ’90s. In 2018, he teamed up with Ben Whishaw (the voice of Paddington Bear in the Paddington film franchise) for the BBC’s true-story-based A Very English Scandal. The three-part series had Grant starring as British Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, who attempted to murder his secret gay lover Norman Scott (played by Whishaw) in the 1970s.

Early Life

Actor Hugh John Mungo Grant was born on September 9, 1960, in London, England. He studied English at Oxford, before pursuing a career in theater. He worked in repertory and as an advertising copywriter, eventually forming his own comedy troupe, the Jockeys of Norfolk.

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QUICK FACTS

• Birth Year: 1960
• Birth date: September 9, 1960
• Birth City: London
• Birth Country: England
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Hugh Grant is a Golden Globe Award-winning British actor who starred in ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral,’ the film adaptation of ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ and ‘Florence Foster Jenkins.’
• Industries
• Drama
• Comedy
• Astrological Sign: Virgo
• Schools
• Oxford

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Hugh Grant Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/hugh-grant
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: September 15, 2022
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014