Sunday, April 27, 1997
Liz takes charge
By LOUIS B. HOBSON
Calgary Sun
HOLLYWOOD -- Elizabeth Hurley has become famous for standing by her man, actor Hugh Grant.
When Hurley and Grant attended the British premier of his hit comedy Four Weddings And A
Funeral, she was just the girl on Hugh's arm. Hurley's slinky Versace gown caught the eye
of Leonard Lauder, who instantly hired her to be a spokesmodel for EsteeLauder. In
less than a year, Hurley became as famous as her boyfriend.
Then came the night of June 27, 1995, when Grant was charged with procuring the services
of prostitute Divine Brown while he was in Los Angeles promoting his comedy Nine Months.
Hurley weathered the media storm that greeted Grant's indiscretion.
"Hugh and I are still very much together. We're still doing business together; we're
still living together and we're still very
much best friends. "That should put the whole incident into perspective and to
rest," is all Hurley will say about her valiant stand on behalf of Grant.
Despite their compatibility and friendship, Hurley, 31, insists she and Grant, 36, still
have no marriage plans. "It's simple. Hugh and I just don't think about getting
married. It's difficult for us to find the time to go to the corner store together to buy
cigarettes, let alone plan a marriage."
Grant and Hurley have been a couple for 10 years since they met playing lovers in the
Spanish film Rowing With The Wind.
"It was love or maybe lust at first sight and we absolutely clicked. I don't know why
we click. It's indefinable. That doesn't
mean we're ready for marriage. That's much too grown-up a step to take and I don't really
feel grown up yet."
For Hurley, there's also that conundrum that "people are never completely honest with
each other no matter how intimate their
relationship might be. "We choose the sides of our personality that we want to show
to other people. Hugh doesn't know the real me."
The "me" Hurley is willing to share at this particular time is the actress. In
Austin Powers, the spy spoof that opens May 2,
Hurley plays secret agent Vanessa Kensington to Mike Myers' playboy spy Austin Powers.
"What I'd really like people to know is that I am not an MTA," says Hurley,
referring to the term in Hollywood for models who have turned actresses.
"I spent eight years in the acting trenches before I became a model. I was 29 when I
got my Estee Lauder contract. It felt so weird because I'd never even considered modelling
as a career. I wanted to be a ballet dancer and an actress but never a model. It was
so bizarre. It was almost as if someone had asked me to become a stockbroker," she
says of the Estee Lauder offer.
Hurley says she thinks the storm of controversy has finally subsided but admits she
doesn't really know. "My New Year's resolution was to stop reading celebrity gossip
about Hugh and I and feel a much better girl for the decision."
Hurley still has friends who keep tabs on the stories in supermarket publications on both
sides of the Atlantic. "They only send me the stories that are libellous. I always
win my libel suits. I read that I'd been hired to play Queen Elizabeth in a racy,
shocking expose. It's all so amusing."
Hurley is not amused when she is reminded of the reports that she had a brief fling last
year with actor Tom Sizemore. At this point, Hurley detours the conversation back to
Austin Powers.
"I behaved myself quite badly for most of the shoot. I had giggling fits almost every
day. Mike is so funny that it breaks me
up just being around him. A couple of times, I laughed so hard that I had the whole crew
laughing. It was such wonderfully silly stuff that Mike invented
for us to do."
Last year, Hurley turned producer for Grant's medical thriller Extreme Measures, a film
Hurley calls "a modest success. "We opened opposite The First Wives Club and got
trampled. The film's doing much better overseas and on video so it will
turn a profit."
She and Grant are currently collaborating on a romantic comedy for Hugh and then somewhere
down the line we hope
to produce a film for us to star together in. "It will be a romantic comedy but we'll
play a feuding couple. That's closer to home for us anyway."