another famous oarsman
KC
Hugh Laurie, who apparently rowed at Eaton and in the University boat
for Cambridge in the 1980 boat race. Pretty cool. :-) He is an
excellent actor, IMHO... and must have been at least decent with an oar,
to have made the blue boat.
The show House is really fun... medical drama with a twist. The plot
lines usually follow a predictable recipe, but the different medical
maladies each week are fun to learn about, and Laurie is just awesome as
Dr. House.
-Kieran
JY
and that's Eton!!
Ah the good old days, when you didn't have to be a 2m international
post-graduate with a foreign accent to row in the Boat Race.
mpruscoe
> A recently favorite TV show of mine, "House" on Fox TV in the USA, stars
> Hugh Laurie, who apparently rowed at Eaton and in the University boat
> for Cambridge in the 1980 boat race. Pretty cool. :-) He is an
> excellent actor, IMHO... and must have been at least decent with an oar,
> to have made the blue boat.
Also, his father, WGRM 'Ran' Laurie, was a multiple Boat Race winner for
Cambridge, multiple Henley winner, Olympic gold medallist in the 2x,
Henley Steward, HRR Committee of Management, Captain/President of
Leander, etc.
Tideway coach
In 1976 he raced at the National Championships in a junior coxed pair
and recorded a dead heat. Dead heats, where the even all the electronic
wizardry cannot split the crews are unusual but even more so in the
most masochistic rowing even there is.
He also represented Great Britain at the Junior World Championships
mpruscoe
> KC wrote:
>> A recently favorite TV show of mine, "House" on Fox TV in the USA,
>> stars Hugh Laurie, who apparently rowed at Eaton and in the University
>> boat for Cambridge in the 1980 boat race. Pretty cool. :-) He is an
>> excellent actor, IMHO... and must have been at least decent with an
>> oar, to have made the blue boat.
>
> Also, his father, WGRM 'Ran' Laurie, was a multiple Boat Race winner for
...and a GP
c.a...@blueyonder.co.uk
KC wrote:
> A recently favorite TV show of mine, "House" on Fox TV in the USA, stars
> Hugh Laurie, who apparently rowed at Eaton and in the University boat
> for Cambridge in the 1980 boat race. Pretty cool. :-) He is an
> excellent actor, IMHO... and must have been at least decent with an oar,
> to have made the blue boat.
Cambridge lost that race by a canvas (2m). In those days we really did
seem doomed never to win the thing again.
Not sure if HL kept up with rowing after he discovered the acting lark.
Can anyone still count him as an honorary/life member of their clubs?
anto...@aol.com
As I remember the eight he rowed in was pretty damn fast. It was one of
the classic Oxford boats from which a bunch of GB intrnationals came
from. He did not get in it because he was the best of a rotten bunch of
collegiate kids, he was a very good oarsman.
Mr Biddulph we need you here. i am thinking it was the eight with John
Bland etc and held the course record for a while. But I may be wrong
daniel...@hotmail.com
>From what I remember the Oxford boat contained the likes of Chris
Mahoney, Mike Diserens, Tom Barry and Boris Rankov. I'll have to look
in Topolski's book tonight to get the full crew lists.
Rookie
He rowed for Cambridge in 1980 and lost a pretty narrow race against an
OXford crew whose bowman collapsed of something. Quite a slow time.
Record breaking years were '76 and '84.
Liz
c.a...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
> KC wrote:
> > A recently favorite TV show of mine, "House" on Fox TV in the USA, stars
> > Hugh Laurie, who apparently rowed at Eaton and in the University boat
> > for Cambridge in the 1980 boat race. Pretty cool. :-) He is an
> > excellent actor, IMHO... and must have been at least decent with an oar,
> > to have made the blue boat.
>
> Can anyone still count him as an honorary/life member of their clubs?
I have seen him at Leander (once), and I understand he's the only LC
member who's address is listed as that of his agent.
Liz
Jon Anderson
> Not sure if HL kept up with rowing after he discovered the acting lark.
> Can anyone still count him as an honorary/life member of their clubs?
He attended the 150th Boat Race anniversary dinner IIRC.
Jon
--
Durge: j...@durge.org http://users.durge.org/~jon/
OnStream: acco...@rowing.org.uk http://www.rowing.org.uk/
[ All views expressed are personal unless otherwise stated ]
Jon Anderson
> He rowed for Cambridge in 1980 and lost a pretty narrow race against an
> OXford crew whose bowman collapsed of something. Quite a slow time.
> Record breaking years were '76 and '84.
And '98 on the huge flood tide.
David Biddulph
news:1137592951.1...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
Yes.
The 1980 CUBC crew was Baart/ Panter/ Whitney/ Laurie/ Phillips/ Woodhouse/
Palmer/ Dalrymple, with Wigglesworth coxing.
The OUBC crew was Francis/ Conington/ Andrews/ Bland/ Rankov/ Mahoney/
Barry/ Desirens, with Mead coxing.
Hugh Laurie did the GB Junior 2+ in 1977 with John Palmer (they came 4th),
and they lost the final of the Goblets in 1980.
--
David Biddulph
Rowing web pages at
http://www.biddulph.org.uk/
KC
Interestingly, the TV show takes place at a Princeton hospital, and they
show an eight rowing during the opening credits. I wonder if the
writers will some how write in a rowing story somehow.
Or, maybe I'll win the lottery... ;^)
-Kieran
David Gillard
If I remember the story vaguely correctly Hugh once went skiffing with his
father and as they were getting into the boat asked him if he'd ever done
this before... Hugh used to accompany his father to the Cambridge dinners,
but I don't remember seeing him since Ran passed away (maybe he was at the
150th as Jon mentioned?). His father Ran Laurie was a total legend. From the
Telegraph obit:
"When Laurie and his fellow colonial officer and Cambridge rowing partner,
Jack Wilson, returned home from the Sudan in 1948, Wilson had not touched an
oar for 10 years. He had also been severely wounded by an assegai in 1942.
But after only three months training, the pair won the Silver Goblets at
Henley so convincingly that they were invited to represent Great Britain in
the first post-war Olympic Games, the rowing taking place at Henley itself.
Known as the "Desert Rats", Laurie and Wilson crowned their distinguished
rowing careers by putting on an outstanding exhibition of coxless pair-oared
rowing to win the gold medal.
more here: http://www.hughlauriefaq.com/1998/ran.html
A piece here which is also relevant:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,4-1620685,00.html :
Much has been made of a supposed antipathy between Holmes and Redgrave and
although Redgrave has acknowledged that they were very different
personalities and never friends off the water, he has insisted that the pair
were not enemies. Holmes was given the choice as a teenager between rowing
and his other passion, playing the drums, and, once said, "like an idiot I
stayed with the sport". He has returned to music, although his occupation is
with a furniture removals company on the South Coast.
So complete has been his detachment from sport that his daughter discovered
that she had a famous dad only when she was flicking through a Ladybird book
about the Olympics at her school. When challenged, Holmes acknowledged his
previous life and retrieved his medals from a hidden corner at the top of
his house.
His daughter would not be the first rowing progeny to discover late that
they had Olympic ancestry. One forerunner to Redgrave and Holmes in the
coxless pair was a certain William Laurie, who, with his best friend, John
Wilson, returned from the Colonial Service in Sudan in 1948 after ten years
out of a boat and won gold. But Laurie did not tell his son, Hugh, the
actor/comedian who was a half-decent rower himself. "I only got it out of my
father by accident," Hugh said, "when he was very old."
James Elder
David Gillard wrote:
> If I remember the story vaguely correctly Hugh once went skiffing with his
> father and as they were getting into the boat asked him if he'd ever done
> this before... Hugh used to accompany his father to the Cambridge dinners,
> but I don't remember seeing him since Ran passed away (maybe he was at the
> 150th as Jon mentioned?). His father Ran Laurie was a total legend. From the
> Telegraph obit:
In the 'Battle of the Blues' book brought out at the time of the 150th
Boat Race there is an affecting article called, IIRC, The Light Blue
Lauries where Hugh writes about Ran - the father was, and still is,
clearly his son's great hero.
David Gillard
I have the book, but haven't read that article - thanks for pointing it
out - I'll look it up.