John Lithgow
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor. He studied at Harvard University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before becoming known for his diverse work on stage and screen. He has received numerous accolades including six Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, and two Tony Awards, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, four Grammy Awards, and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Lithgow has won two Tony Awards, his first for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his Broadway debut in The Changing Room and his second for Best Actor in a Musical for Sweet Smell of Success. He was Tony-nominated for Requiem for a Heavyweight, M. Butterfly, and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. He has appeared on Broadway in The Columnist, A Delicate Balance, and Hillary and Clinton. In the West End, he portrayed Roald Dahl in the play Giant, for which he won the 2025 Laurence Olivier Best Actor Award.
Lithgow starred as Dick Solomon in the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, winning three Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. He received further Emmy Awards for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series playing Arthur Mitchell in the drama Dexter and for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in the Netflix drama The Crown. He also starred in the HBO drama series Perry Mason and the FX thriller series The Old Man.
In film, Lithgow has received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his roles as a transgender ex-football player in The World According to Garp and as a lonely banker in Terms of Endearment. He also acted in All That Jazz, Blow Out, Footloose, The Manhattan Project, Harry and the Hendersons, A Civil Action, Shrek, Kinsey, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Love Is Strange, Interstellar, Late Night, Bombshell, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Conclave.
Early life and education
Lithgow was born on October 19, 1945, in Rochester, New York. His mother, Sarah Jane, was a retired actress. His father, Arthur Lithgow, was a theatrical producer and director who ran McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. His father was born in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, to a European-American family; his great-grandfather was a vice consul and vice commercial agent in the country. He is the third of four children and his siblings are an older brother David Lithgow, an older sister Robin Lithgow, and a younger sister Sarah Jane Bokaer.On the show Finding Your Roots, Lithgow discovered that he is a descendant of eight Mayflower passengers, including colonial governor William Bradford. He is also related to that show's host, the historian and literary critic, Henry Louis Gates Jr., in addition to being distant cousins with painter Frederic Edwin Church, chef Julia Child, author Thomas Pynchon, and actors Alec Baldwin, Clint Eastwood, and Sally Field.
Because of his father's job, the family moved frequently during Lithgow's childhood. He spent his childhood years in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where activist Coretta Scott King was his babysitter. He spent his teenage years in Akron and Lakewood, Ohio, followed by Princeton, New Jersey.
Lithgow is a 1963 graduate of Princeton High School. He then studied history and English literature at Harvard College. Lithgow lived in Adams House as an undergraduate and later served on the Harvard Board of Overseers. He credits a performance at Harvard of Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia Limited with helping him decide to become an actor. He was a pupil of dramatist Robert Chapman who was the director of Harvard's Loeb Drama Center. Lithgow was graduated from Harvard in 1967 with an A.B. magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Upon graduation from Harvard, Lithgow won a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After graduation from the LAMDA, he served as the director of the Arts and Literature Department at WBAI, the Pacifica radio station in New York City.
Career
1972–1995: Rise to prominence
In 1972, Lithgow made his film debut in Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues. In 1976, he starred in a pivotal role in Brian De Palma's Obsession with Cliff Robertson and Genevieve Bujold as Robertson's long time business partner, Robert Lasalle. In 1973, Lithgow debuted on Broadway in David Storey's The Changing Room at the Morosco Theatre, playing English rugby player Kenny Kendal. He won a Drama Desk Award and the Tony Award for Featured Actor in a Play. The production ran from March 2 to August 18, totaling 3 previews and 192 performances. The following year, he starred again on Broadway in the comedy play My Fat Friend, opposite Lynn Redgrave at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. He starred in several plays, such as 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, A Memory of Two Mondays, and Secret Service, with Meryl Streep at The Public Theatre and with Tom Hulce at the Playhouse Theatre. Lithgow acted in Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical movie All That Jazz, playing a character loosely based on real-life Broadway director and choreographer Michael Bennett. Between 1978 and 1980, Lithgow appeared in ten episodes of the radio drama revival series CBS Radio Mystery Theater. Lithgow voiced the character of Yoda in the National Public Radio adaptations of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.Lithgow was approached about playing Dr. Frasier Crane on Cheers, but turned it down. In 1982, Lithgow was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances as transsexual ex-football player Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp. In 1983, he played lonely small-town banker Sam Burns in Terms of Endearment, receiving his second consecutive Oscar nomination. Both films were screen adaptations of popular novels. In 1983, Lithgow appeared in a remake of the classic Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" in Twilight Zone: The Movie as the paranoid passenger made famous on the television show by William Shatner. In an interview with Bill Moyers, Lithgow revealed this role as his favorite of his film career. Also in 1983, Lithgow appeared in a minor role as University of Kansas science professor Joe Huxley in the nuclear apocalypse television film The Day After, receiving a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. In 1984, he starred in the film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension as Dr. Emilio Lizardo / Lord John Whorfin. Also in 1984, he starred in 2010: The Year We Make Contact and played a pastor who condemns dancing in Footloose.
In 1985, he starred opposite Jodie Foster in Mesmerized. Also in 1985, he starred in Santa Claus: The Movie alongside Dudley Moore. Also in 1985, at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway, he starred in Requiem for a Heavyweight, written by Rod Serling. Playing washed-up boxer Harlan "Mountain" McClintock, he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. The production ran only 11 performances. In 1986, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Special for Resting Place, portraying Major Kendall Laird, a charismatic but morally compromised Southern lawman entangled in a long-buried murder. In 1986, he starred in The Manhattan Project, directed by Marshall Brickman. Also in 1986, Lithgow won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his appearance in the episode "The Doll" of the Amazing Stories anthology series. In 1987, Lithgow starred in the Bigfoot-themed family comedy Harry and the Hendersons.
In 1988, he returned to Broadway and starred in David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly alongside BD Wong, at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre. Playing French diplomat René Gallimard, he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. The production ran from March 13 to January 27, 1990, totaling 9 previews and 777 performances.In 1991, he starred in the movie Ricochet opposite Denzel Washington as Earl Talbot Blake, a criminal seeking revenge against the policeman who sent him to prison. Also in 1991, he played missionary Leslie Huben in the film adaptation of Peter Matthiessen's novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord. In 1992, he starred as a man with multiple personality disorder in Brian De Palma's film Raising Cain. In 1992, he became the narrator in the Dr. Seuss video Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories. In 1993, he starred in Renny Harlin's film Cliffhanger opposite Sylvester Stallone as terrorist leader Eric Qualen, and he reunited with Washington in Alan J. Pakula's film The Pelican Brief. In 1994, Lithgow played Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the NBC miniseries World War II: When Lions Roared directed by Joseph Sargent, and starring alongside Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, Lithgow said that his parents loved Roosevelt and that his mother "burst into tears" when he told her he was playing him. Lithgow wore leg braces to mirror Roosevelt's paralysis after FDR contracted polio and expressed the difficulty of playing a reversed historical figure: "People know him and revere him so much, no matter how close you get, you’re not only far from the real thing, you are far from people’s fantasies of him. But what also makes it’s hard, is what makes it fascinating." Variety praised the performances of Lithgow, Caine, and Hoskins, and Paul Mavis admitted Lithgow "does quite well with the character" despite his initial reservations on whether the actor could faithfully portray FDR. In 1995, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for My Brother’s Keeper, portraying Tom Bradley, an HIV-positive teacher, and Bob Bradley, his twin brother. He provided narration for the IMAX film Special Effects: Anything Can Happen.