Gregory House is the fictional protagonist of the American medical drama series House. Created by David Shore and portrayed by English actor Hugh Laurie, he leads a team of diagnosticians and is the Head of Diagnostic Medicine at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in Princeton, New Jersey. House's character has been described as a misanthrope, cynic, narcissist, and curmudgeon, the last of which terms was named one of the top television words of 2005 in honor of the character.
In the series, the character's unorthodox diagnostic approaches, radical therapeutic motives, and stalwart rationality have resulted in much conflict between him and his colleagues. House is also often portrayed as lacking sympathy for his patients, a practice that allows him time to solve pathological enigmas. The character is partly inspired by Sherlock Holmes. A portion of the show's plot centers on House's habitual use of Vicodin to manage pain stemming from leg infarction involving his quadriceps muscle some years earlier, an injury that forces him to walk with a cane. This dependency is also one of the many parallels to Holmes, who was a habitual user of cocaine and other drugs.
The character received generally positive reviews and was included in several "best of" lists. Tom Shales of The Washington Post called House "the most electrifying character to hit television in years". For his portrayal, Laurie won various awards, including two Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor in a Television Series – Drama, two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Actor from Drama Series, two Satellite Awards for Best Actor in a Television Series – Drama, two TCA Awards for Individual Achievement in Drama, and has received a total of six Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
Character history
Gregory House was born to John and Blythe House on June 11, 1959, or May 15, 1959. House is a military brat; his father served as a Marine Corps aviator and transferred often to other bases during House's childhood. House presumably picked up his affinity with languages during this period and shows a level of understanding of Chinese, Greek, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Hindi, and Yiddish. One place in which his father was stationed was Egypt, where House developed a fascination with archaeology and treasure-hunting, which led him to keep his treasure-hunting tools well into adulthood. Another station was Japan, where a 14-year-old House discovered his vocation after a rock climbing incident with his friend. He witnessed the respect given to a buraku doctor who solved the case no other doctor could. He also spent some time in the Philippines, where he had dental surgery.
House loves his mother but hates his father, who he claims has an "insane moral compass", and deliberately attempts to avoid both parents. At one point (episode "One Day, One Room"), House tells a story of his parents leaving him with his grandmother, whose punishments constituted abuse. However, he later confesses it was his father who abused him. Due to this abuse, House never believed John was his biological father; at the age of 12, he inferred that a friend of the family with the same birthmark as himself was his real father. In the episode "Birthmarks", House discovers that John is not his biological father after ordering a DNA test. After a second DNA test was performed in the episode "Love is Blind", House discovers that the man he assumed to be his biological father, Thomas Bell, was not either. The identity of his real father remains unknown.