Overview (4)

Mini Bio (1)

If "born to the theater" has meaning in determining a person's life path, then John Lithgow is a prime example of this truth. He was born in Rochester, New York, to Sarah Jane (Price), an actress, and Arthur Washington Lithgow III, who was both a theatrical producer and director. John's father was born in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, where the Anglo-American Lithgow family had lived for several generations.



John moved frequently as a child, while his father founded and managed local and college theaters and Shakespeare festivals throughout the Midwest of the United States. Not until he was 16, and his father became head of the McCarter Theater in Princeton New Jersey, did the family settle down. But for John, the theater was still not a career. He won a scholarship to Harvard University, where he finally caught the acting bug (as well as found a wife). Harvard was followed by a Fulbright scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Returning from London, his rigorous dramatic training stood him in good stead, and a distinguished career on Broadway gave him one Tony Award for "The Changing Room", a second nomination in 1985 for "Requiem For a Heavyweight", and a third in 1988 for "M. Butterfly". But with critical acclaim came personal confusion, and in the mid 1970s, he and his wife divorced. He entered therapy, and in 1982, his life started in a new direction, the movies - he received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Roberta Muldoon in Garp und wie er die Welt sah (1982). A second Oscar nomination followed for Zeit der Zärtlichkeit (1983), and he met a UCLA economics professor who became his second wife. As the decade of the 1990s came around, he found that he was spending too much time on location, and another career move brought him to television in the hugely successful series Hinterm Mond gleich links (1996).



This production also played a role in bringing him back together with the son from his first marriage, Ian Lithgow, who has a regular role in the series as a dimwitted student.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Bruce Cameron <dumarest@midcoast.com>

Spouse (2)

Mary Yeager (12 December 1981 - present) ( 2 children) Jean Taynton (10 September 1966 - 1980) ( divorced) ( 1 child)

Trade Mark (6)

Distinctive dramatic voice



Towering height and slender frame



In his earlier roles, often played villains or mentally unstable characters



In his more recent work, often plays fathers and family men



Wild, over-the-top acting



Receding hairline and bold blue eyes



Trivia (40)

He attended and graduated from Princeton High School in Princeton, New Jersey.



He attended Harvard College and graduated with a Bachelor's degree magna cum laude in history and literature (1967). He lived in Adams House as an undergraduate. Lithgow later served on Harvard's Board of Overseers.



He studied at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.



He was named a Fulbright scholar.





He is the parent of Ian Lithgow with Jean Taynton, and Phoebe Lithgow and Nathan Lithgow with Mary Yeager.

He hosted the Welcoming Reception for UCLA's new Chancellor Carnesale.





He claims that his most difficult performance was in Unheimliche Schattenlichter (1983) because he had to portray fear of the monster, although he could not really see it.



He was the original voice of Hades in Disney's Hercules (1997) and recorded all the dialogue, but his performance was then replaced by the performance of James Woods

In May 2002, he won both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award as Best Actor in a Broadway musical for his performance in "Sweet Smell of Success".



His wife Mary Yeager is an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.





His father ran a Shakespearian Acting company in the 1950s which included David Carradine

His parents are Sarah Jane Price (born 1917) and theater director/producer Arthur Lithgow (1915-2004).



Biography in: "Contemporary Authors". Volume 217, pg. 219-223. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2004.



He has provided the voice of Yoda in the NPR radio dramatizations of "The Empire Strikes Back" (1983) and "Return of the Jedi" (1996).





He has won two Tony Awards: in 1973, as Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for David Storey 's "The Changing Room"; and in 2002, as Best Actor (Musical) for "Sweet Smell of Success." He has also been nominated on three occasions for Tonys -- two for Best Actor (Play): for "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (1985) and "M. Butterfly." (1988), and once for Best Actor (Musical): for "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (2005).



He was called in to replace another actor in Zeit der Zärtlichkeit (1983), and his role was filmed in three days during a break from filming Footloose (1984).



Three of his non-film roles have been based on movies involving Frank Oz and Ian McDiarmid . Most of Oz's and McDiarmid's collaborations are the Star Wars films, in which they play Yoda and Darth Sidious, respectively. Lithgow played Yoda on the radio. Oz also directed McDiarmid in Zwei hinreißend verdorbene Schurken (1988). Lithgow appeared in the stage musical.

He is a registered pastor of Rose Ministries and has officiated the wedding of his goddaughter.



He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS).





Even though his parents were both actors, he was inspired to get into acting by Peter Sellers

His ancestry includes Welsh (from his maternal grandfather), English, as well as French, Scots-Irish/Northern Irish, and Scottish. His father was born in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, where the white American Lithgow family had lived for a few generations.



He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6666 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on May 2, 2001.



Despite being known for playing characters who are often pompous and unlikable or outright villainous, he has been described by many of his co-stars as an extremely kind and friendly man and a pleasure to work with.





He has two grandchildren through his son, Ian Lithgow



He has said that Chaplin's Moderne Zeiten (1936) is his favorite film.

He is a celebrity spokesperson for Campbell Select soups since 2006.



He is an accomplished guitar player.



He lives in Los Angeles, California.



The role of Frasier Craine (first on Cheers then the spin-off) was written with Lithgow in mind. He's said years later, "Kelsey [Grammer] did a fine job!".





He was considered for the role of The Joker in Batman (1989).

He was awarded the 1989 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Distinguished Achievement, Lead Performance, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," at Center Theatre Group/Ahmanson Theatre production at the James A. Doolittle Theatre (University of California) in Los Angeles, California.



He was awarded the 1973 Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for "The Changing Room" on Broadway in New York City.





For his Broadway debut, Lithgow appeared in David Storey 's "The Changing Room" on March 7, 1973, and won the Tony Award 18 days later (March 25) setting a record for a Broadway acting debut.



As a youth, John and his siblings were often babysat by Coretta Scott (later Coretta Scott King ) in Yellow Springs, Ohio.



He is just 12 years older than Lori Singer , who played his daughter in Footloose (1984).

His last name is pronounced LITH-go.



Personal Quotes (12)



[on the constant time-slot changes and ultimate cancellation of Hinterm Mond gleich links (1996)] If NBC had set out to ruin it, they couldn't have done a better job. They kept trying to use us as a weapon instead of a show to be taken care of. It would have been nice to have stayed a big hit, but I'd rather be a great show that nobody was watching than a lousy show that was a big hit, which is the case for most of the others.

In general, my basic rule of thumb is just act in things you would want to see yourself in. I have a taste for all kinds of movies. Usually, it's a question of whether it will be fun, whether I respect the people behind it, whether I would like to work with them. I'm sure I'm a serious-minded actor, but I still value the frivolity of acting. It's a real exuberant, entertaining thing to do. I never lose track of that.



I've had parallel careers in the theatre and in movies. In the theatre, I often play characters with a strong sense of innocence who aren't as intelligent as I am. The reason: my size. I seem sort of big and good-natured on stage. It would be too much for a big man to play a forbidding character on stage. So I play big people who are fairly gentle. It's a wonderful thing to build a career on. What I offer to movie-makers is that I can put a tremendous amount of theatrical background and technical equipment at their disposal. I can make believable the over-the-top characters.



[from a 1984 interview] My career just happened to me. I didn't manage it. My plate is full all the time, but I never have the opportunity to choose from ten parts. I do turn down junk. I've played important parts in movies but I haven't yet played the person the story is about. The joy is in the work. You can get too hung up on where you are. I'm not preoccupied with the desire to be top banana, but I do want to play bigger parts.



We deal in very volatile chemicals. We're in the business of using real emotions to bring pretend emotions to life. We all have our secrets and we all have our deceptions. Acting, at its best, is all about deceiving people, and that makes it all the more interesting to us.



One of the things you learn as an actor is that human beings are capable of almost anything. I'm sort of in the business of illustrating that fact.



My sense of myself is that I'm a character actor, and character actors are ready, willing and able to do anything, to be totally different from themselves. That's my job, to be ready. I'm some kind of first responder.



No bad guy thinks he's a bad guy. He thinks he's a good guy.





[on working with Saul Zaentz on Ein Pfeil in den Himmel (1991)] Saul loves being answerable to nobody. That's the most extraordinary thing about him. The dailies didn't get sent anywhere for anybody else's approval and cost overruns weren't monitored by a bunch of executives thousand of miles away. He owns it all. He does it the way he wants it. It's incredible how that affects every aspect of production. I've never really worked with anyone like him. Being on the set, playing hearts with Saul, I realised the secret to his success: he can spot everyone's strengths and weaknesses right away. He was a killer. He'd shoot the moon three out of every four games. I don't know if it was the giant bugs or the humidity, but I couldn't sleep for weeks. We had terrible weather and horrible actor-director arguments, but Saul was unflappable. He went through all the same hardships we did, but he behaved as if there was no other place he'd rather be.

[on the character usually played by his favorite French comic actor Jacques Tati] He was always a bit oblivious, just a little bit startled by everything, and acted in a completely rational but inappropriate way to whatever happened.



Actors swing wildly between arrogance and self-doubt. I never completely believe the praise, although I become deeply injured by anything negative said of me....I'm married to a very tough-minded woman. She doesn't let me get away with anything. She's the great ego deflector, and we all need that.





[on working with Daryl Hannah on Ein Pfeil in den Himmel (1991)] Daryl and I are very different actors. Daryl is accustomed to being a "movie star" and a very girlish one. That's her great strength: her wonderful performances are in movies like Splash: Jungfrau am Haken (1984), where she is kind of an innocent who has stumbled into someone else's world. Perhaps Daryl and I were mismatched in all sorts of ways. I tend to fault the director when that happens. I think that At Play in the Fields of the Lord had all sorts of problems. We were not brought into an ensemble. I think it happened in the casting, but I think it also happened in the making of the movie, and ultimately it happened in the cutting of the movie. The movie was 6 hours long when it was cut together and they had to cut it in half, and they took all the mortar out of it. It was a very disjointed film in terms of the relationship of those 5 or 6 principal characters.

Salary (2)