Tony and Emmy Award-Winning Actor & LGBTQ+ Activist
Alan Cumming: Biography at a Glance
- Alan Cumming is a multi-award-winning actor, writer, singer, producer, and director.
- He made his Broadway debut as the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret, winning the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer critics’ Circle, New York Press, and Public Advocate’s awards, and was inducted into the Vanity Fair Hall of Fame.
- He starred as political spin doctor 'Eli Gold' in seven seasons The Good Wife, receiving three Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations. He returned in the last season of The Good Fight.
- His memoir Not My Father's Son about his abusive childhood in Scotland and dealing with the resulting trauma was a #1 New York Times bestseller.
- Cumming's second memoir, Baggage: Tales From a Fully Packed Life, reveals how every step, good and bad, of his unconventional life has made him who he is today.
- His many films include Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, Goldeneye, X2:X Men United, Spy Kids, The Anniversary Party, Titus, Burlesque, Any Day Now, and Battle of the Sexes.
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Biography
Alan Cumming is beyond eclectic. His most recent projects include creating a dance theatre piece about the Scottish bard Robert Burns, lip-synching the protagonist in a documentary, directing a podcast series about a sperm bank heist, playing a gangster opposite Liam Neason in a Neil Jordan film, curating a cabaret festival in Australia and recording a duet with a Gaelic rapper. Perhaps not surprisingly, Time Magazine called him one of the three most fun people in show business (the others were Cher and Stanley Tucci!)
Thirty years ago his Hamlet stormed the West End and he was hailed as ‘an actor knocking at the door of greatness’. A quarter of a century ago he was a sensation as Cabaret’s Master of Ceremonies in a production that forever changed the Broadway landscape. A decade ago his visceral, virtually one-man Macbeth was a stunning, transatlantic coup de theatre.
His screen work ranges from art house to blockbuster, cult to the mainstream, but his performances are always indelible and some immortal: “Mr. Floop” in Spy Kids, “Eli” in The Good Wife, Nightcrawler in X2: X Men United, “Sebastian” in The High Life, “O” in Sex and the City, “Boris” in Goldeneye, “King James” in Doctor Who, “Sandy Frink” in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, “Mayor Menlove” in Schmigadoon, and himself on Broad City.
He is the author of six books including a New York Times #1 bestselling memoir, performs in concert regularly in halls around the world, and co-owns his own, eponymous cabaret bar Club Cumming, a home for ‘all ages, all genders, all colours, all sexualities, where kindness is all and anything could happen!’
The list of his collaborators over the years includes Liza Minnelli, Jeremy O. Harris, Jackie Chan, the Smurfs, David Bowie, The Simpsons, Robert Wilson, Stanley Kubrick, Jay Z, Bianca Del Rio, the Spice Girls, George Lucas, Terence Blanchard, KT Tunstall and not forgetting Dora the Explorer, Arthur and Elmo.
He had a photo exhibition named Alan Cumming Snaps! and an award-winning fragrance named Cumming. He has played Dionysus, the Devil, God, and the Pope and was shot by Herb Ritts for Vanity Fair as Pan. He recently played a 70-year-old woman. He has been a Lee Jeans model and on a stamp. He is a Tony and Olivier award-winning theatre actor. He hosted the Tonys and was nominated for an Emmy for doing so. In fact, he has been nominated for five Emmys, won a New York Emmy, a Scottish BAFTA, and a British Comedy Award. He is an Independent Spirit award-winning producer and National Board of Review-winning director. He is a Grammy and multiple Golden Globe nominee. His portrait was hung in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in the spot previously occupied by the Queen, who made him an O.B.E. (Officer of the British Empire) in her 2009 Honours List for his commitment to LGBT rights. He has four honourary doctorates and over forty awards for being a humanitarian, but as he says, ‘awards mean nothing!’
