
John Lithgow
Department: Acting
Biography
John Arthur Lithgow (born October 19, 1945) 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, and two Tony Awards, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, four Grammy Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. Lithgow 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 the musical 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 acted in the plays The Columnist (2012), A Delicate Balance (2014), and Hillary and Clinton (2019). He portrayed Roald Dahl in the play Giant on the West End, for which he was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor. He starred as Dick Solomon in the television sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001), winning three Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. He received further Primetime Emmy Awards for his performances as Arthur Mitchell in the drama Dexter (2009) and as Winston Churchill in the Netflix drama The Crown (2016–2019). He also starred in HBO's Perry Mason (2020) and FX's The Old Man (2022). On film, he has received two Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor nominations for his roles as a transgender ex-football player in The World According to Garp (1982) and 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).
Known For

Shrek
2001

Footloose
1984

Sharper
2023

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers
2004

Confessions of a Shopaholic
2009

2010
1984

Obsession
1976

The Manhattan Project
1986

Terms of Endearment
1983

Kinsey
2004

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
1984

The World According to Garp
1982

Blow Out
1981

The Day After
1983

The Tuskegee Airmen
1995

Give My Regards to Broadway
2020

Leap Year
2010

The Ghost of Lord Farquaad
2003

Harry and the Hendersons
1987

A Civil Action
1998

Ricochet
1991

Bark, George
2003

The Pelican Brief
1993

Cliffhanger
1993

Santa Claus: The Movie
1985

A Good Man in Africa
1994

Inside 'Interstellar'
2015

Raising Cain
1992

The Big Fix
1978

The Wrong Man
1993

Dogs and More Dogs
2004

Live in Front of a Studio Audience: The Facts of Life and Diff'rent Strokes
2021

Officer Buckle and Gloria
1997

Princess Caraboo
1994

Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
2000

All That Jazz
1979

Homegrown
1998

Silent Fall
1994

They All Saw a Cat
2017

Casting By
2012

At Play in the Fields of the Lord
1991

Resting Place
1986

Mesmerized
1985

Love, Cheat & Steal
1993

Hollow Point
1996

Rich Kids
1979

Projections of America
2015

The Campaign
2012

This Is 40
2012

Out Cold
1989

Chez Bob
2022

Car of the Future
2008

The Bubble
2022

Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues
1972

Redwood Curtain
1995

Interstellar
2014

95 Worlds and Counting
2000

Don Quixote
2000

Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did For Love
2013

Distant Thunder
1988

Cabrini
2024

Baby Girl Scott
1987

Love Is Strange
2014

Special Effects: Anything Can Happen
1996

National Theatre Live: The Magistrate
2013

Orange County
2002

Spellbound
2024

My Brother's Keeper
1995

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
2011

Twilight Zone: The Movie
1983

Memphis Belle
1990

The Rule of Jenny Pen
2025

Ivory Hunters
1990

The Homesman
2014

Sangre
2006

Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic
2023

Night of 100 Stars III
1990

Johnny Skidmarks
1998

Art Happens Here with John Lithgow
2024

The Accountant
2016

Miracle in a Box: A Piano Reborn
2009

The Jungle Bunch 2: The Great Treasure Quest
2014

Lord John
2015

Dreamgirls
2006

Broadway: The Next Generation
—

Best of Enemies
2015

Shrek Stories
2013

Timms Valley
2013

The Oldest Living Graduate
1980

The Glitter Dome
1984

Jimpa
2026

I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can
1982

Ode to Joy: Beethoven's Symphony No. 9
2016

Miss Sloane
2016

Amazing Stories: The Movie II
1990

Shakespeare Live! From the RSC
2016

Beatriz at Dinner
2017

Goldilocks and the Three Bears
1984

Daddy's Home 2
2017

Einstein's Big Idea
2005

Buckaroo Banzai Declassified
2002

ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway
2007

Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party
2001

The Pulitzer At 100
2017

Pitch Perfect 3
2017

Secret Service
1977

Mister Rogers: It's You I Like
2018

Late Night
2019

Pet Sematary
2019

Traveling Man
1989

The Great Robot Race: The DARPA Grand Challenge
2006

Bombshell
2019

The Amazing Bone
1987

Hickory Dickory Doc
2017

Not in Front of the Children
1982

The Tomorrow Man
2019

Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
1993

The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
2006

Santa Claus: The Making of the Movie
1985

The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts
2019

Big Blonde
1980

The Boys
1991

New Year's Eve
2011

John Lithgow's Kid-Sized Concert
1990

Shrek: Once Upon a Time
2011

The Macabre World of Lavender Williams
2009

Mom, the Wolfman and Me
1980

Tales from the Crypt: The Robert Zemeckis Collection
1999

The Country Mouse & the City Mouse: A Christmas Tale
1993

Myths and Hymns
2021

The Country Girl
1974

Emily @ the Edge of Chaos
2021

Pet Sematary: The Tale of Timmy Baterman
2018

Killers of the Flower Moon
2023

On Broadway
2019

Masters of Illusion: The Wizards of Special Effects
1994

Conclave
2024

Show of Titles
2021

2010 : The Odyssey Continues
1984

Sequestered - Inside Conclave
—

Shrek 3-D
2003

9 Kisses
2014

Finding Harry: The Craft Behind the Magic
2026

3rd Rock from the Sun
1996

How I Met Your Mother
2005

The Tony Danza Show
2004

Twenty Good Years
2006

Today
1952

Tales from the Crypt
1989

The View
1997

Frasier
1993

The Apprentice: Martha Stewart
2005

The Early Show
1999

Finding Your Roots
2012

The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer
2018

Faerie Tale Theatre
1982

30 Rock
2006

The Colbert Report
2005

Hallmark Hall of Fame
1951

Late Night with Conan O'Brien
1993

Cosby
1996

VH1 Goes Inside
2003

The West
1996

American Cinema
1994

Once Upon a Time in Wonderland
2013

Dexter
2006

Live from E!
2002

NOVA
1974

The Daily Show
1996

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
2015

The View
1997

Amazing Stories
1985

Liv Ullmann: A Road Less Travelled
2023

Late Night with Seth Meyers
2014

Saturday Night Live
1975

Dexter: New Blood
2021

The Crown
2016

World War II: When Lions Roared
1994

Trial & Error
2017

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
2014

The Roosevelts: An Intimate History
2014

The Simpsons
1989

The Graham Norton Show
2007

Sherri
2022

Hallmark Hall of Fame
1951

Hallmark Hall of Fame
1951

The Rosie O'Donnell Show
1996

Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen
2009

Perry Mason
2020

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
2015

The West
1996

James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction
2018

The Kelly Clarkson Show
2019

Stars in the House
2020

Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter
2015

Firing Line with Margaret Hoover
2018

Prohibition
2011

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
2015

The Simpsons
1989

Great Performances
1971

The Old Man
2022

Conan
2010

Golden Globe Awards
1944

Golden Globe Awards
1944

Variety Studio: Actors on Actors
2014

Harry Potter
2026

The Oscars
1953

The One Show
2006

Dexter: Resurrection
2025

DreamWorks 6 Spooky Stories Collection
2003

Tales from the Crypt - Uncut
1992

Golden Globe Awards
1944

SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night
2025

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
1962

The Late Late Show with James Corden
2015

Jimmy Kimmel Live!
2003

Tony Awards
1956

Tony Awards
1956

Tony Awards
1956

Tony Awards
1956