John Lithgow

John Lithgow
Lithgow in 2008
Born	John Arthur Lithgow (1945-10-19) October 19, 1945 (age 79) Rochester, New York, U.S.
Education	Harvard University (BA) London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art
Occupations	Actor author musician poet
Years active	1972–present
Works	Full list
Spouses	Jean Taynton ​ ​ (m. 1966; div. 1980)​ Mary Yeager ​ (m. 1981)​
Children	3, including Ian Lithgow
Father	Arthur Lithgow
Awards	Full list
Website	www.johnlithgow.com

John Arthur Lithgow (/ˈlɪθɡoʊ/ LITH-goh; born October 19, 1945) is an American actor, writer, and singer. 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 (1972) and his second for Best Actor in a Musical for Sweet Smell of Success (2002). He was Tony-nominated for Requiem for a Heavyweight (1985), M. Butterfly (1988), and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005). He has appeared on Broadway in The Columnist (2012), A Delicate Balance (2014), and Hillary and Clinton (2019). In the West End, he portrayed Roald Dahl in the play Giant (2024), for which he won the Olivier Award for Best Actor.

Lithgow starred as Dick Solomon in the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001), 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 (2009) and for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in the Netflix drama The Crown (2016–2019). He also starred in the HBO drama series Perry Mason (2020) and the FX thriller series The Old Man (2022).

In film, Lithgow has received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his roles as a transsexual ex-football player in The World According to Garp (1982) and as a lonely banker in Terms of Endearment (1983). He also acted in All That Jazz (1979), Blow Out (1981), Footloose (1984), Harry and the Hendersons (1987), A Civil Action (1998), Shrek (2001), Kinsey (2004), Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Love Is Strange (2014), Interstellar (2014), Late Night (2019), Bombshell (2019), Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), and Conclave (2024).