Oct 2, 2026
Author Spotlight: Richard E. Grant — The Actor Who Turned Grief Into a Pocketful of Happiness
A deep dive on Richard E. Grant — the Swazi-English actor born Richard Grant Esterhuysen in Mbabane in 1957, who grew up with an alcoholic father and a fractured home, moved to London in 1982, and became one of the most beloved character actors of his generation as the perpetually drunk Withnail in Withnail and I; the four-decade career that spans Gosford Park, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Star Wars, and the Oscar-, BAFTA- and Golden Globe-nominated performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me?; the memoirist and lifelong diarist whose A Pocketful of Happiness turned the death of his wife, the dialect coach Joan Washington, into one of the most honest books about love and loss of the decade; his defining reflections on happiness, grief, love and keeping a diary; and the legacy of a man who has made a second career out of teaching the world how to speak the names of the dead — back in the spotlight as a contestant on The Celebrity Traitors.