Hugh Laurie

After two decades as a popular comedian in the United Kingdom, Hugh Laurie found fame in the United States as percipient churl Dr. Gregory House in TV's House, M.D. Laurie got his start in Cambridge University's Footlights Revue in 1979. There he met actress Emma Thompson and his future partner in comedy, Stephen Fry. Laurie and Fry became familiar faces on British television in the 1980s and '90s , appearing in Rowan Atkinson's Blackadder series, as well as A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster (with Laurie as Bertie Wooster). On film, Laurie appeared with Thompson in Peter's Friends (1992) and Ang Lee's version of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility (1995, also with Kate Winslet). Once in Hollywood, Laurie became familiar to filmgoers for his roles in children's movies, especially the live-action version of 101 Dalmations (1996, starring Glenn Close) and 1999's Stuart Little and its sequels (opposite Geena Davis). In 2004 he appeared in the feature film remake Flight of the Phoenix (starring Dennis Quaid). That same year, he won the lead role in the medical series House (also starring Lisa Edelstein), with Laurie playing a sarcastic and antisocial but mystery-solving doc. The role brought him an Emmy nomination (2005) and two Golden Globe wins (2006 and 2007).

Extra credit: Laurie published a well-received comic spy novel, The Gun Seller, in 1996.