John Arthur Lithgow ( LITH-goh; 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 four Actor Awards, seven Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, and three Tony Awards, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award and four Grammy Awards.
Lithgow has won three Tony Awards, his first for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his Broadway debut portraying a rugby player in The Changing Room (1972), his second for Best Actor in a Musical for playing a fearful columnist in Sweet Smell of Success (2002), and his third for Best Actor in a Play for his portrayal of Roald Dahl in Giant (2026). He was Tony-nominated for Requiem for a Heavyweight (1985), M. Butterfly (1988), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005), and The Columnist (2012). He has also acted in A Delicate Balance (2014), and Hillary and Clinton (2019).
On television, 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 (2022–2024).
In film, Lithgow has received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his roles as a transgender 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).
Lithgow was born on October 19, 1945, in Rochester, New York. His mother, Sarah Jane (née Price), was a retired actress. His father, Arthur Lithgow, was a theatrical producer and director who ran McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. His father was born in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, to a European-American family; his great-grandfather was a vice consul and vice commercial agent in the country. He is the third of four children and his siblings are an older brother David Lithgow, an older sister Robin Lithgow, and a younger sister Sarah Jane Bokaer.
Lithgow is of mostly English and Welsh descent. His maternal grandfather, Orlo Price, as well as other family members, left their native Wales, and settled in a town called Welsh Hills, Ohio, and started fruit farming in the 19th century. On the show Finding Your Roots, Lithgow also discovered that he is a descendant of eight Mayflower passengers, including colonial governor William Bradford. He is also related to that show's host, the historian and literary critic, Henry Louis Gates Jr., in addition to being distant cousins with painter Frederic Edwin Church, chef Julia Child, author Thomas Pynchon, and actors Alec Baldwin, Clint Eastwood, and Sally Field.
Because of his father's job, the family moved frequently during Lithgow's childhood. He spent his childhood years in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where activist Coretta Scott King was his babysitter. He spent his teenage years in Akron (living at Stan Hywet Hall) and Lakewood, Ohio, followed by Princeton, New Jersey.
Lithgow is a 1963 graduate of Princeton High School. He then studied history and English literature at Harvard College. Lithgow lived in Adams House as an undergraduate and later served on the Harvard Board of Overseers. He credits a performance at Harvard of Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia Limited with helping him decide to become an actor. He was a pupil of dramatist Robert Chapman who was the director of Harvard's Loeb Drama Center. Lithgow was graduated from Harvard in 1967 with an A.B. magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Upon graduation from Harvard, Lithgow won a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After graduation from the LAMDA, he served as the director of the Arts and Literature Department at WBAI, the Pacifica radio station in New York City.
1972–1995: Broadway debut and breakthrough
In 1972, Lithgow made his film debut in Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues. In 1976, he starred in a pivotal role in Brian De Palma's Obsession with Cliff Robertson and Genevieve Bujold as Robertson's long time business partner, Robert Lasalle. In 1973, Lithgow debuted on Broadway in David Storey's The Changing Room at the Morosco Theatre, playing English rugby player Kenny Kendal. He won a Drama Desk Award and the Tony Award for Featured Actor in a Play. The production ran from March 2 to August 18, totaling 3 previews and 192 performances. The following year, he starred again on Broadway in the comedy play My Fat Friend, opposite Lynn Redgrave at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. He starred in several plays, such as 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, A Memory of Two Mondays, and Secret Service, with Meryl Streep at The Public Theater and with Tom Hulce at the Playhouse Theatre. Lithgow acted in Bob Fosse's semi-autobiographical movie All That Jazz (1979), playing a character loosely based on real-life Broadway director and choreographer Michael Bennett. Between 1978 and 1980, Lithgow appeared in ten episodes of the radio drama revival series CBS Radio Mystery Theater. Lithgow voiced the character of Yoda in the National Public Radio adaptations of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Lithgow was approached about playing Dr. Frasier Crane on Cheers, but turned it down. In 1982, Lithgow was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performances as transsexual ex-football player Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp. In 1983, he played lonely small-town banker Sam Burns in Terms of Endearment, receiving his second consecutive Oscar nomination. Both films were screen adaptations of popular novels. In 1983, Lithgow appeared in a remake of the classic Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" in Twilight Zone: The Movie as the paranoid passenger made famous on the television show by William Shatner. In an interview with Bill Moyers, Lithgow revealed this role as his favorite of his film career. Also in 1983, Lithgow appeared in a minor role as University of Kansas science professor Joe Huxley in the nuclear apocalypse television film The Day After, receiving a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. In 1984, he starred in the film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension as Dr. Emilio Lizardo / Lord John Whorfin. Also in 1984, he starred in 2010: The Year We Make Contact and played a pastor who condemns dancing and rock music in Footloose.
In 1985, he starred opposite Jodie Foster in Mesmerized. Also in 1985, he starred in Santa Claus: The Movie alongside Dudley Moore. Also in 1985, at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway, he starred in Requiem for a Heavyweight, written by Rod Serling. Playing washed-up boxer Harlan "Mountain" McClintock, he won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. The production ran only 11 performances. In 1986, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Special for Resting Place, portraying Major Kendall Laird, a charismatic but morally compromised Southern lawman entangled in a long-buried murder. In 1986, he starred in The Manhattan Project, directed by Marshall Brickman. Also in 1986, Lithgow won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his appearance in the episode "The Doll" of the Amazing Stories anthology series. In 1987, Lithgow starred in the Bigfoot-themed family comedy Harry and the Hendersons.