Mirabellalife.com – 2001

By K.J. Elsdon

Swaziland was a popular long-weekend destination during the apartheid years, when South African citizens could let loose their frustrations in this friendly, non-racial country. Now it’s perhaps better known as the birthplace of Richard E. Grant, one of the most versatile and talented actors to emerge from the southern hemisphere.

Born Richard Grant Esterhuysen in Mbabne on May 5th 1957, the man who would achieve international stardom as Withnail wasn’t geographically well situated for stardom. His father, Henrik, was the Swazi Minister of Education and the young Richard enjoyed a privileged colonial upbringing. However, when he left school a move to another country was inevitable. Despite the staunch anti-apartheid stance of his family, the most financially viable option for his tertiary education was South Africa, so he became a student at the University of Cape Town at a time when many of his fellow students were aiming well beyond the safe, old-fashioned drama preferred by the Nationalist government. In fact the list of Grant‚s fellow alumni reads like a “Who’s Who” of contemporary South African theatre.

In his second year at UCT he helped to found the Troupe Theatre Company, which was considered revolutionary in its day because it was non-racial and questioned the political status quo. Like many students of his day, Richard was strongly opposed to apartheid and was known as “a bit of a leftie” but was never a radical, preferring to channel his anger into productions which were frequently over-ambitious, but never complacent.

When his father died of cancer at the age of 51 Richard, who had always harboured ambitions of making a name for himself in Europe, felt as though he had no reason to remain in southern Africa. His mother had left home after an affair with a mining engineer some years previously and his relationship with his brother Stuart, who regarded his older brother as overly theatrical and therefore effeminate, was unsatisfactory. Some years after Richard became a household name with projects like Withnail & I and How to Get Ahead in Advertising Stuart, who by then had qualified as an accountant, married and moved to Johannesburg, would grant The News of the World an interview in which he made a string of poisonous allegations about his brother.

Having successfully relocated to the U.K. Richard found that the money that he had inherited from his father cushioned him from the worst of the deprivations suffered by many “resting” actors. It’s rumoured that he first consulted top vocal coach, Joan Washington in 1982, to rid him of a South African accent, but whatever the reason for their first encounter the pair eventually married in 1987, the year in which Richard enjoyed his first and greatest success as the imperious slob, Withnail.

In 1985 Richard was elated to be offered a part in a BBC film about the advertising industry called Honest, Decent & True in which he starred with Gary Oldman, who would become a close friend. Much to Richard‚s frustration the screening date was continually delayed, which made it much more difficult for him to persuade casting agencies to take him seriously.

Eventually he was asked to audition for an untitled project by ex-actor Bruce Robinson who had previously been nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay, The Killing Fields. This was to be Robinson’s directorial debut and the script, which was partly autobiographical, concerned a pair of impoverished drama students, Withnail and Marwood, who were eking out a life in a squalid flat in Camden Town. The film had “cult classic” written all over it, a fact which Robinson constantly reminded his somewhat dubious cast, when their enthusiasm for trudging around the freezing sets clad only in threadbare underwear began to wane. On its release Richard had the rare distinction of becoming an overnight star. Withnail, with his overbearing, yet neurotic personality and superb command of language, was the broken-down toff that most students wanted to resemble.

From the humiliation of attending auditions for cigar adverts, Richard E. Grant found that successful actors are invited to participate in projects. It’s thanks to his lifelong skills as a diarist that fans were given a behind-the-scenes passport to projects such as the ill-fated Hudson Hawk, Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Player, Robert Altman’s critique of the Hollywood system. With Nails, the collection of Richard’s coruscatingly witty film diaries received glowing reviews by book and film critics and encouraged a new flood of people to watch his films.

Considering that his looks are less than traditionally handsome, Richard E. Grant has attracted a solid fan base of devoted women who correspond via the internet and call themselves “the REGiment”. From teenagers to middle-aged mothers, these benevolent fanatics swap information about Richard’s latest TV and film appearances and donate money to the Waterford School Trust, which was set up to provide bursaries for needy students wishing to attend Richard’s alma mater.

Despite claims that behind the facade of charm lies a darker and less approachable man, he goes out of his way to maintain contact with the REGiment, participating in internet question and answer sessions and, after his recent West End appearance in the Morecombe & Wise pastiche The Play Whatt I Wrote, invited several members to meet him backstage after the show.

Although he‚s perhaps more popular with the REGiment for his TV appearances as the Scarlet Pimpernel, Grant has appeared in many high quality movies, including Mountains of the Moon, Henry & June, The Age of Innocence, Prêt-à-Porter, Jack and Sarah, The Portrait of a Lady and, more recently, Gosford Park.

Reports claim that his long-standing friends tend to have keen brains rather than being in the forefront of the Hollywood power structure, so Grant prefers to rub shoulders with Steve Martin, Gary Oldman, Sandra Bernhard and Hugh Grant, leaving the company of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to more fanatically ambitious actors.

His old friend from Waterford, the South African actor Stephen Jennings says, “The paradox of Richard, which is a great part of his charm, is that he cares deeply about what people think, and at the same time doesn’t give a damn if you’ve got a proclivity for biting wit, you can’t afford to.”

If his adoring REGiment is in any way representative of the opinion of thousands of fans, the man who is Withnail has nothing to worry about.