Louis Emerick Grant was born on the 10th of June 1960 in Toxteth, Liverpool to a Liberian father and British mother and is the youngest of ten children. He didn’t go to official drama school, but worked in lots of different jobs, as a steel fixer at one point, and when it was too cold he'd go inside and do factory jobs. It was while he was working in a factory one Friday night everything changed for him. Louis recalls, "When we were cleaning up I sang along to the radio over the tannoy and the foreman Arthur Dutton overheard me. He then told me a local theatre group was auditioning for parts in 'Hair' (the 60s American hippy rock musical) and said I should go along, and that moment altered the course of my life". Louis went along to the audition, sang Ben E King's 'Stand By Me' and landed a part. There was a link with this show because his former brother-in-law Paul Barber had been in 'Hair' in the west end, (Paul played Denzell in 'Only Fools and Horses' and went on to play the part of Horse in the film version of 'The Full Monty' – the same role as Louis would perform later in his career). He did performances in the Cheshire area and it gave him a real buzz, but gaining an Equity card was a mammoth task at the time. Just before his 20th birthday in 1982 Louis had been made redundant and with nothing to lose, applied for drama school. In another twist of fate, he was accepted but had most of the year to wait before the course began. Already a young father, he applied to local theatres and landed work appearing in 'The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe' with theatre group Contact. They asked him about his plans for the future and he told them he was going to drama school but they offered him a full-time position, just after his 21st birthday in 1984.
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| as Mick Johnson in 'Brookside' |
His first TV appearances were in 2 episodes of 'The Practice' (1985) as a Garage attendant and this was followed by amongst others, 'Home To Roost' (1987), 'Floodtide' (1988) and 'Children's Ward' (1989). He then got his big break in 'Brookside' (1989-2001). Louis recalls, "Initially my character Mick Johnson was supposed to be white, but I didn’t know that. But I happened to know another actor who had had an audition before me and he told me that Mick was a bit of a prankster." Armed with that information, Louis appeared at the audition in character as the cheeky chappy. "That worked, and then I discovered the director lived round the corner from where I lived at the time in Manchester. It all seemed to come together." The expected single episode led to TV appearances for the next 12 years during which time he says, "Brookside was a great place to learn."
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| PCs Walsh and Cooper |
He also played a recurring role as PC Walsh in 55 episodes of 'Last of the Summer Wine' (1988-2010), and in 3 episodes of 'Merseybeat' (2002). In 2003 he was cast in four episodes of 'Casualty' as Mike Bateman, the fireman husband of Tess Bateman (Suzanne Packer) who he had co-starred with as a married couple on 'Brookside' and would go on to play other characters in 10 more episodes of the series. He also had roles in 'The Bill' (2003), two roles in 'Holby City' (2003-2010), 'Waterloo Road' (2008), 'Silent Witness' (2013) and 'Benidorm' (2014-16). He also came third in the 2008 series of 'Celebrity Master Chef'. Louis has also appeared on 'Coronation Street' in two roles: firstly as a Vanman in August 1986 and secondly as retired teacher Mike Thornberry between March and June 2018, with a return to the latter role in December of the same year. In 2014 he starred in an episode of the soap opera 'Doctors', a series he had appeared in 3 episodes before as different characters. Also in September 2014 he began playing the role of Horse in the touring production of 'The Full Monty' and has also starred in several other straight plays and pantos. He played Herman, the mungo pub landlord, in the comedy fantasy series 'Zapped' (2016-18) followed by notable roles in TV series 'Run' (2020) and 'Broke' (2020). Louis has appeared in the classic gangster film 'Layer Cake' (2004) as Trevor, with Daniel Craig and Tom Hardy and has worked with Eddie Redmayne in the actor's first play in Liverpool and has also worked with Mark Rylance. "I’m a starmaker!" he says laughing. Louis has just completed filming on the drama 'Bolan's Shoes', a film written and directed by Ian Puleston-Davies which was release in 2023. Also, he recently wrapped on the Hollywood feature film 'Kung Fury 2' (2023) alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Fassbender.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2024/06/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-tina.html
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