Commentary : Four Talk Shows and a Premiere : It’s Damage Control, Big Time, as Grant Manages to Avoid Tough Questions

The Hugh Grant Spin-Controlathon, which will likely be taught in college public relations courses for years to come, began Monday on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.” Grant, appearing contrite and uncomfortable, yet not so uncomfortable that he could not crack a joke or two, declared, “I need to suffer for all this.”

Anxious to suffer right along with Grant, we raptly followed his magical media tour of the talk shows, from Leno to Larry King to “The Today Show” and even “Live With Regis and Kathie Lee.”

Grant, who pleaded no contest earlier this week to indulging in lewd conduct in a public place, was, to be sure, courageous to take the heat repeatedly in even more public places. On the other hand, he was astonishingly canny in his ability to sit through about two hours of interviews and allow nothing more than “I did a bad thing.”

Pundits aplenty have meditated on what effect this ordeal will have on Grant’s career and whether this is all much ado about what is essentially a victimless crime (though, Grant honestly conceded, he has hurt others, notably longtime girlfriend Elizabeth Hurley).

In Hollywood, however, the question is and will always be, “But did it make for good television?” and the answer is, well, sure. But not as good as if someone had bothered to prevent Grant from slithering around the issues at hand.

Herewith, the adventures of the Englishman who went up a media mountain and came down a molehill.

July 10: “Tonight With Jay Leno”

As soon as Grant sat down, Leno got the easiest big laugh of his career: “What the hell were you thinking?”

Grant, with the endearingly stammering elocution and fluttering eyelids that made him a star, endured the questioning like a good sport. “I’d be enjoying this as much as anyone else” had someone else been the perpetrator, he said.

Leno turned the cameras to a woman outside the studio brandishing a sign that read, “I would have paid you, Hugh,” and, referring to Grant’s co-star in “Nine Months,” got off one decent line: “When you embarrass Tom Arnold, that’s really bad.” Leno’s theme, a recurring one throughout the week: Rest easy, Hugh, everyone loves you, arrest record or no.

July 11: Premiere of “Nine Months”

Hurley, a trooper in her own right, appeared on Grant’s arm at the gala opening of his new film, which promises to make him a major star.

July 12: “Larry King Live”

All-pro softball lobber King did manage to ask a couple of questions more probing than Leno’s, but certainly didn’t press when Grant deftly tap-danced around them.

Grant stated that he had never previously sought to employ a sexually entrepreneurial woman and amplified his previous confession to Leno: “It was a disloyal and shabby and goatish thing.” He said he was not much up for self-examination or psychoanalysis, and proved it when he noted that “Nine Months,” which opened that day, “is already doing fantastic business, so that’s the main thing.”

King’s producers held the gate in the one area where Grant could have honestly been embarrassed--questions from viewers. Only two callers got on air; one merely gushed affection, while the other’s query was conveniently mangled in the ether of telephone lines.

Occasionally, King didn’t seem to quite get Grant’s airily playful sense of humor or the way filmmaking worked (the fact that an upcoming Grant film had already been shot stunned him). At one bewildering point, King declared, “We have all done it,” not specifying whether he meant undergoing psychoanalysis or hiring hookers (speak for yourself, Larry!).

But nothing in the interview could match King’s jaw-dropping first question: “What do you think of the O.J. trial?”

July 14: “Today” and “Live With Regis and Kathie Lee”

While teen girls outside “Today’s” studio toted sweetly scrawled signs reading, “We forgive Hugh!” the actor repeated the mantra that sustained him throughout the week: He’s doing this because he really likes his film.

“I’m surprised it’s going on quite this long,” said Grant of his one-man media circus, letting the obvious “Hint, hint” go unspoken.

Undaunted, Katie Couric asked, “How long do you think you’ll be asked about it?”

Couric did muster up a couple of new questions, and Grant a couple of new non-answers. To Couric’s observation that Hurley looked miserable at the premiere: “It would’ve been nonsense if she had been grinning from ear to ear.” Regarding Newsweek magazine reporting on his “raunchy underside”: “I’ve never pretended to be totally squeaky-clean.”

Perhaps most interesting, Grant admitted that three days after sentencing (which he did not attend), he still had no idea what the penalty was for his misdemeanor offense.

Ninety minutes later, Grant was smiling and blinking and stammering for Kathie Lee Gifford and Regis Philbin, where the story was the week’s media roundelay itself. With no option but to succumb to the perky duo’s rube-like behavior, Grant was far more at ease than he was at the beginning of the week.

Gifford, who curiously referred to “Nine Months” liner notes, even more curiously asked Grant, “Do you see this as a blessing?” Her logic: Grant’s “life might have gone on a path that ultimately could have been far more damaging.” Grant conceded he had in fact not considered that line of thinking, and soon, they were off discussing the fact that he had once auditioned to play Tarzan.

Grant will appear on “Late Show With David Letterman” Wednesday. Oh, well, at least the episode will also feature “hollering expert” Larry Jackson.