James Hugh Calum Laurie OBE (born June 11, 1959) is a Golden Globe-winning English actor, comedian, musician and writer. Laurie is best known in the United Kingdom, Australia and parts of Europe for his roles in Blackadder and for his long-running comedy collaboration with Stephen Fry which has included A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster. In the United States, he is best known for playing Dr. Gregory House on House, M.D..

In 2006 and 2007, Laurie won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Television Drama and won the 2007 SAG Award in the same category, all for his work in House, MD. In 2005 and 2007-2011, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for the role.

Early life and education

Laurie was born in Oxford in 1959. His father, William George Ranald Mundell "Ran" Laurie, was a doctor and also won an Olympic gold medal in the coxless pairs at the 1948 London Games.

Laurie was brought up in Oxford and attended the Dragon School, a prestigious preparatory school. He later went on to Eton and then to Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he achieved a Third-Class Honors degree (roughly the equivalent of a "C" average for a four-year program in the United States) in archaeology and anthropology. Laurie later admitted that the only reason he chose Cambridge was that it gave him a chance to keep rowing (he was a world class junior rower at Eton) and he read archeology because it gave him plenty of time to row.

Like his father, Laurie was a rower at school and university; in 1977, he was half of the junior coxed pair that won the English national title before representing England's Youth Team at the 1977 World Championships. Later, he also achieved a Blue taking part in the 1980 Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. Cambridge lost that year by five feet (1.5 m). Laurie is a member of the Leander Club, one of the oldest rowing clubs in the world.

Forced to abandon rowing during a bout of glandular fever (mononucleosis), he joined the Cambridge Footlights, which has been the starting point for many successful British comedians. There he met Emma Thompson, with whom he had a romantic relationship and is still good friends. She introduced him to his future comedy partner, Stephen Fry. Laurie, Fry and Thompson later parodied themselves as the University Challenge representatives of "Footlights College, Oxbridge" in "Bambi", an episode of The Young Ones, with the series' co-writer Ben Elton completing their team. In 1980–81, his final year at university, Laurie managed to find time alongside his rowing to be president of the Footlights, with Thompson as vice-president. They took their annual revue, The Cellar Tapes, written principally by Laurie and Fry, the cast also including Thompson, Tony Slattery, Paul Shearer and Penny Dwyer, to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and won the first Perrier Comedy Award for comedy.

Career

The Perrier Award led to a West End transfer for The Cellar Tapes and a television version of the revue, broadcast in May 1982. It also resulted in Laurie, Fry and Thompson being selected along with Ben Elton, Robbie Coltrane and Siobhan Redmond to write and appear in a new sketch comedy show for Granada Television, Alfresco, which ran for two series.

Fry and Laurie went on to work together on various projects throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Among them were the Blackadder series, written by Ben Elton and Richard Curtis and starring Rowan Atkinson, with Laurie in various roles, but most notably Prince George and Lieutenant George; their BBC sketch comedy series, A Bit of Fry and Laurie; and Jeeves and Wooster. The latter was an adaptation of P.G. Wodehouse's stories, in which Laurie played Jeeves' employer, the amiable twit Bertie Wooster. It was a role for which Laurie was considered particularly well suited, displaying his talent as a pianist and singer, alongside his celebrated 'posh' voice. He and Fry also worked together at various charity stage events, such as Hysteria! 1, 2 & 3 and Amnesty International's The Secret Policeman's Third Ball, Comic Relief TV shows and the variety show Fry and Laurie Host a Christmas Night with the Stars. They also collaborated on the film Peter's Friends. Laurie also appeared in an early 1980s British television commercial for Polaroid. ....