John Lithgow
☼ Born on 19 December 1945, in Rochester, New York, USA
Biography
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 i
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n The World According to Garp (1982). A second Oscar nomination followed for Terms of Endearment (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 3rd Rock from the Sun (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.
In the role of actor
Conclave (25/10/2024)
A conflicted Cardinal oversees a hotly contested election of a new Pope in Conclave. After the unexpected death of the Pope, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), dean of the College of Cardinals, prepares to oversee the highly secretive election ritual of the conclave. Several frontrunners emerge to take up the papacy, including the left-wing reformist Cardinal […]
Killers of the Flower Moon (25/10/2023)
A man and his Osage wife are at the centre of a series of murders in 1920s Oklahoma in Killers of the Flower Moon. After oil was found on their Oklahoma reservation, the Osage people became wealthy from the development that happened in the county. After returning from the First World War, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo […]
The 8th (05/06/2020)
Ireland prepares for a referendum to repeal a controversial anti-abortion law in The 8th. In 1983, the people of Ireland voted to add the 8th Amendment to the constitution stating that the unborn have equal rights to life as its mother, which effectively makes abortion illegal in the country. 35 years later, activist Ailbhe Smyth leads […]
Bombshell (19/12/2019)
The story behind the 2016 Fox News scandal is told in Bombshell. Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron) is one of the top anchors at Fox News, who had just recovered from a year of public ridicule by Presidential candidate Donald Trump when fellow Fox News host Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) finds herself suddenly fired. Immediately afterwards, […]
Interstellar (05/11/2014)
From Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception) comes the science fiction epic Interstellar. At an unspecified point in the future, global warming has affected the Earth to the point where dust storms are a regular occurrence and the focus of humanity has moved from technology to agriculture, in order to maintain the shrinking food […]
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (07/08/2011)
It’s easy to use the reboot buzzword when describing this film, but the film can also be seen as a loose remake of 1972’s Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (which was the fourth film of the original series). The film is actually pretty decent and features a much more realistic depiction of apes, than […]