- published: 02 Jul 2009
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James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE (born 11 June 1959), known as Hugh Laurie (/ˈhjuː ˈlɒri/), is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director. He first became known as one half of the Fry and Laurie double act, along with his friend and comedy partner Stephen Fry, whom he joined in the cast of Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster from 1987 to 1999.
From 2004 to 2012, he played Dr Gregory House, the protagonist of House, for which he received two Golden Globe awards, two Screen Actors Guild awards, and six Emmy nominations. As of August 2010, Laurie is the highest paid actor in a drama series on US television. He has been listed in the 2011 Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid actor ever in a TV Drama—earning US$ 700,000 per episode in House—and for being the most watched leading man on television.
Laurie was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. The youngest of four children, Laurie has an older brother named Charles and two older sisters named Susan and Janet. He had a somewhat strained relationship with his mother, Patricia (née Laidlaw). His father, Ran Laurie, was a medical doctor who also won an Olympic gold medal in the coxless pairs (rowing) at the 1948 London Games.
Jonathan Alberto "John" Leguizamo (born July 22, 1964) is a Colombian-American actor, producer, voice artist, and comedian.
John Leguizamo was born in Bogotá, Colombia, to Alberto and Luz Leguizamo, According to Leguizamo, his paternal grandfather was of Puerto Rican and Italian descent and his maternal grandfather was Lebanese. Leguizamo has also described himself as being of Amerindian and Mestizo heritage. Leguizamo's father was once an aspiring film director and studied at Cinecittà, but eventually dropped out due to lack of finances. When Leguizamo was four years old, his family emigrated to the United States and lived in various neighborhoods of Queens in New York City, including Jackson Heights. He later credited growing up as one of the first Latino children in his Jackson Heights neighborhood as formative in his acting ability: "It was tough. There were lots of fights. I would walk through a park and be attacked, and I had to defend myself all the time. But this helped me to become funny so that I wouldn’t get hit." Leguizamo attended the Joseph Pulitzer Middle School (I.S.145) and later the Murry Bergtraum High School. As a student at Murry Bergtraum, Leguizamo wrote comedy material and tested it out on his classmates. He was voted "Most Talkative" by his fellow classmates. After graduating from high school, he began his theater career as an undergraduate at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in which he eventually dropped out to seek a stand-up comedy career. Post NYU Leguizamo enrolled at Long Island University C.W. Post Campus where he took theater classes.
Jeffrey "Jeff" Garlin (born June 5, 1962) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, voice artist, director, writer and author, best known for his role as Jeff Greene on the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm. He is also a producer on the show.
Garlin was born in Chicago, Illinois on June 5, 1962 and grew up in Morton Grove, Illinois where his father had a plumbing supply business and his mother was active in community theater. Garlin is Jewish and attended Hebrew school. He graduated from Fort Lauderdale's Nova High School in 1980. He attended Broward Community College followed by a stint at the University of Miami, but eventually dropped out. He began performing stand-up comedy there.
In 1984, at the age of 22, Garlin moved back to Chicago, to perform with the comedy troupe The Second City, into which he had been accepted, as well as to pursue a stand-up comedy career there. Several years later, he was roommates with Conan O'Brien, who was then a comedy writer. (He remains close to O'Brien, and after O'Brien was removed as host of The Tonight Show in 2010 so that Jay Leno could return, Garlin stated that he would not be a guest on the show again.)