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Awards
John Lithgow won a Tony Award just 18 days after his Broadway debut in The Changing Room in 1973. He earned Oscar nominations for The World According to Garp and Terms of Endearment, and three Emmy Awards for 3rd Rock from the Sun. His portrayal of Arthur Mitchell in Dexter won him an additional Emmy Award.
Names, aliases, and relatives of John Lithgow — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
John Lithgow by the numbers — life, work, and family.
John Lithgow — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Actress Sarah Jane Price and theatrical producer Arthur Lithgow had a son, John, in Rochester, New York in 1945. His father ran Shakespeare festivals and theaters across the Midwest, moving the family frequently until they settled in Princeton, New Jersey when John was 16. He won a scholarship to Harvard College, where he caught the acting bug, followed by a Fulbright scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
Lithgow made his Broadway debut in David Storey’s The Changing Room on March 7, 1973, and won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play just 18 days later, setting a record. He received his first Oscar nomination for The World According to Garp in 1982, followed by a second nomination for Terms of Endearment in 1983. In 1996, he transitioned to television with the sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, earning three consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. Later, he played the chilling Arthur Mitchell in Dexter, winning another Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.
His film career includes roles in Footloose 1984, Cliffhanger, and Shrek. He also voiced characters in The Simpsons and performed Yoda in NPR radio dramas.
Lithgow married Jean Taynton in 1966; they divorced in 1980 after having son Ian Lithgow. In 1981, he married UCLA economics professor Mary Yeager, with whom he has two children, Phoebe and Nathan. He met Yeager during a three-week rehearsal for the TV movie The Oldest Living Graduate in Los Angeles. He has described his difficult performance in Twilight Zone: The Movie due to needing to portray fear of a monster he couldn’t see.
Lithgow has won two Tony Awards, six Primetime Emmy Awards, and two Oscar nominations. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2001. His voice work as Yoda in NPR radio dramas and his role in The World According to Garp showed his range. Co-stars describe him as a kind and friendly man, despite his frequent portrayal of pompous or villainous characters.
The complete filmography of John Lithgow — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by John Lithgow — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
John Lithgow's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
A wall of memorable lines from John Lithgow — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
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.
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.
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.
Little-known facts about John Lithgow — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
Attending Harvard College, he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in history and literature in 1967. During his undergraduate years, he lived in Adams House. He later served on Harvard’s Board of Overseers.
Despite having parents who were both actors, he drew inspiration to enter acting from Peter Sellers.
An accomplished guitarist, John Lithgow plays the guitar.
The role of Frasier Crane on Cheers and its spin-off was written with Lithgow in mind, but he declined; he later remarked that Kelsey Grammer did a fine job.
Co-stars describe him as a kind and friendly man, despite his frequent roles as pompous or villainous characters.
He was named a Fulbright scholar.
He was called in to replace another actor in Terms of Endearment 1983, and his role was filmed in three days during a break from Footloose 1984.
As a youth, John and his siblings were often babysat by Coretta Scott, later Coretta Scott King, in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
He is a registered pastor of Rose Ministries and officiated the wedding of his goddaughter.
He claims that his most difficult performance was in Twilight Zone: The Movie 1983 because he had to portray fear of the monster, although he could not really see it.
His wife Mary Yeager was an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television at 6666 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on May 2, 2001.
He has appeared in four films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: All That Jazz 1979, Terms of Endearment 1983, Killers of the Flower Moon 2023, and Conclave 2024. Terms of Endearment won.
He studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts LAMDA.
Met his wife Mary Yeager through an unusual twist of fate when he made a dreadful career choice. After he declined a role in Harold Pinter’s Betrayal to honor a prior commitment, his play closed in under three weeks. He then became available for the TV movie The Oldest Living Graduate with Henry Fonda, during which he met Mary.
He provided the voice of Yoda in the NPR radio dramatizations of The Empire Strikes Back 1983 and Return of the Jedi 1996.
He 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 also received three additional Tony nominations.
He has appeared in two films selected for the National Film Registry: All That Jazz 1979 and Shrek 2001.
His father was born in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, where the Anglo-American Lithgow family lived for generations. Most of his roots are Colonial American English, with Welsh, French, Northern Irish, and Scottish ancestry.
His father ran a Shakespearian acting company in the 1950s that included David Carradine.
He has been a celebrity spokesperson for Campbell Select soups since 2006.
He has said that Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times 1936 is his favorite film.
For his Broadway debut in The Changing Room on March 7, 1973, he won the Tony Award 18 days later on March 25, setting a record for fastest Tony win by a debut performer.
His parents are Sarah Jane Price 1917-2012 and theater director/producer Arthur Lithgow 1915-2004.
He attended and graduated from Princeton High School in Princeton, New Jersey.
He is just 12 years older than Lori Singer, who played his daughter in Footloose 1984.
He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences AMPAS.
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 last name is pronounced LITH-go.
He has two grandchildren through his son, Ian Lithgow.
Friends with Alfred Molina and William Shatner.
He is the parent of Ian Lithgow with Jean Taynton, and Phoebe and Nathan Lithgow with Mary Yeager.
In common with Robert Hardy, he has played both President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill on screen.
Won an Emmy for 3rd Rock from the Sun.
He was awarded the 1989 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Distinguished Achievement, Lead Performance, for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Ahmanson Theatre.
Three of his non-film roles are based on movies involving Frank Oz and Ian McDiarmid. Lithgow played Yoda on the radio, and Oz directed McDiarmid in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels 1988; Lithgow appeared in the stage musical.
He won the 1973 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for The Changing Room.
He hosted the Welcoming Reception for UCLA’s new Chancellor Carnesale.
His biography appeared in Contemporary Authors, Volume 217, pg. 219-223, Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2004.
He lives in Los Angeles, California.
Born on the exact same date as Divine.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about John Lithgow.
Celebrities similar to John Lithgow — same craft, ranked by reach.
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