Richard E. Grant was born in Mbabane, Swaziland on 5th May 1957 and is 6'2". His actual name is Richard Grant Esterhuysen and his father, Hendrik, was Minister of Education in Swaziland. He has a younger brother, Stuart, who is now an accountant in South Africa. His mother, Leonie, left home when Richard was 9 and a half and when he was eleven his parents divorced.
From an early age Richard showed an interest in theatricals, making a model theatre out of shoeboxes, writing and performing his own entertainments at the age of eight. He attended Waterford boarding school and then went on to Cape Town University, where he studied drama and founded his own multiracial theatre troupe. Richard left South Africa and came to London in 1982.
Since the age of 11 Richard has kept a diary and in 1996 he published With Nails which was an adaptation of part of these diaries and is a brilliantly ironic account of ten years in the life of an actor. It contains particularly humorous vignettes of Hollywood, where he lived for 18 months and starred in many films.
Today he is back treading the boards in Bath for a sell out performance. Unfortunatley he is probably most recognised for his advertising of the shop Argos where he appears as a happless rocker!