40 years ago, Hugh Grant made his film debut in 1982’s “Privileged,” a little-seen effort about undergraduates at Oxford (where Grant studied English lit), which was funded by the Oxford University Film Foundation. In its July 14, 1982, review, Variety said the film — which also marked the bows of producer Andy Paterson, director Michael Hoffman, actors Imogen Stubbs and James Wilby and composer Rachel Portman — would have “limited interest” for most audiences but that the actor, billed as Hughie Grant, gives a convincing performance as an “aristocratic dropout.”
For the next five years, Grant did sketch comedy, played the classics onstage and worked in TV; his first mention in Variety was for the 1985 miniseries “Jenny’s War,” playing the Raf pilot son of Dyan Cannon.
He boosted his profile with the 1987 Merchant-Ivory film “Maurice,” adapted from E.M. Forster. The film also featuring his “Privileged” costar Wilby and the two shared the best-actor prize at the Venice Film Festival.
For the next five years, Grant did sketch comedy, played the classics onstage and worked in TV; his first mention in Variety was for the 1985 miniseries “Jenny’s War,” playing the Raf pilot son of Dyan Cannon.
He boosted his profile with the 1987 Merchant-Ivory film “Maurice,” adapted from E.M. Forster. The film also featuring his “Privileged” costar Wilby and the two shared the best-actor prize at the Venice Film Festival.
- 9/1/2022
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
Christopher Cazenove, who has died of septicaemia aged 64, always dreamed of being a film star, although his father – a brigadier in the Coldstream Guards – wanted him to follow in his military footsteps. Ironically, when Cazenove fulfilled his acting ambitions, he made his name as the blue-eyed, clean-cut hero Lieutenant Richard Gaunt in The Regiment (1972-73). The drama series, following a 1970 pilot, traced the fortunes of the Cotswolds Regiment at the turn of the 19th century – from the Boer War to service in India – through the lives of two families, the Gaunts and the Brights. Cazenove's fame was confirmed when he was featured on the cover of Radio Times.
The old Etonian seemed happy to become typecast playing aristocrats. On television, he was also seen in Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill (1974) as George Cornwallis-West, a...
The old Etonian seemed happy to become typecast playing aristocrats. On television, he was also seen in Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill (1974) as George Cornwallis-West, a...
- 4/8/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
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