John Arthur Lithgow (IPA: [ˈʤɔn ˈlɪθɡaʊ]) (born October 19, 1945) is an American actor perhaps best-known for his starring role as Dick Solomon in the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun. He has also achieved success on stage, film, and radio. He has earned multiple Emmy Awards and Tony Awards, as well as two Oscar nominations. He has also recorded music for children. He holds a Master of Arts from Harvard University.
Lithgow was born in Rochester, New York. His mother, Sarah Jane (Price), was a retired actress, and his father, Arthur Lithgow, was a theatrical producer and director who ran the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. Because of his father's job, the family moved frequently during Lithgow's childhood. The famous writer N. Emlyn Baker once compared Lithgow to "a Pine tree".
Lithgow won a scholarship to Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1967. He was in the same dorm as former Vice President Al Gore and actor Tommy Lee Jones. Lithgow later served...
Created by dipity on Jan 24, 2008
Last updated: 11/11/09 at 08:14 PM
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The Smurfs is a computer-animated film being produced by Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Pictures for November 28 , 2008. It is the first of a planned trilogy starring Peyo's Smurf characters. The cast is unknown, but it is rumored to feature the voices of John Lithgow and Julia Sweeney. The film is being produced by Jordan Kerner and Paul Neesan.
...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472181
Kinsey is a 2004 biographical film written and directed by Bill Condon. It describes the life of Alfred Kinsey (played by Liam Neeson). As a pioneer in the area of sexology research, his 1948 publication, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (the first of the Kinsey Reports) was one of the first recorded works that tried to scientifically address and investigate sexual behaviour and its consequences (and lack thereof) in humans. The movie also stars Laura Linney (in a performance nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress), Chris O'Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton, John Lithgow, Tim Curry, Oliver Platt, Dylan Baker and William Sadler as Kenneth Braun. Kinsey was nominated for a number of awards, winning 10 of them.
Professor Alfred Kinsey, the protagonist, is being interviewed about his sex history. Through the interview, the salient points in Kinsey's life are revealed to the viewer in several flashbacks. There are two sequences: one depicting experiences as a...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362269
Shrek 2, which was released in the United States on May 19 2004, is the 2004 sequel to the 2001 computer-animated DreamWorks Pictures film Shrek. In April 2004, the film was selected for competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. There are more Shrek movies to follow, according to Jeffrey Katzenberg: "We didn't have the guts to tell anybody when we started out, [but] we have two more chapters to tell. Not unlike Peter Jackson did with The Lord of the Rings. The difference is they did have the guts to make all three of them 'back-to-back-to-back'".Shrek 2 scored the fourth-largest three-day opening weekend in US history, as well as the largest opening for an animated movie until May 18th, 2007, when it was eclipsed by its sequel Shrek the Third. As of 2006, it is the 3rd highest box office grossing film of all time in the United States. Worldwide, it is the eighth highest grossing film. It went on to be the most successful film in 2004. The associated soundtrack reached the top ten...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298148
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers is a 2004 film about the life of British comic actor Peter Sellers, based on Roger Lewis's book of the same name. It was directed by Stephen Hopkins and starred Geoffrey Rush as Sellers, Miriam Margolyes as his mother Peg Sellers, Emily Watson as his first wife Anne Howe, Charlize Theron as his second wife Britt Ekland, John Lithgow as Blake Edwards, Stephen Fry as Maurice Woodruff and Stanley Tucci as Stanley Kubrick.
The film shows Peter Sellers as a demented genius, not having a personality of his own. It glimpses his life as a family man and as an actor.
According to the film, Sellers was not too excited about landing a role in Pink Panther movies, as the Clouseau character was only offered to him after Peter Ustinov turned it down. Also, it upset him that Clouseau was only a minor character, with David Niven's character getting the bulk of the attention. Sellers' performance impressed Blake Edwards, though, and Clouseau was made the central...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0352520
Shrek is an Academy Award winning animated feature film based upon William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book entitled Shrek! It was directed by New Zealander Andrew Adamson and animated by DreamWorks Animation SKG in May 2001. Shrek was the first film to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, a category introduced in 2001. It was released on DVD and VHS on November 2 2001.
The name Shrek likely comes from the Yiddish word שרעק (pronounced Shreck) or the German word Schreck, in either case meaning "fear" or "terror".The film features the voices of Mike Myers as a large, strong, solitude-loving yet grumpy green ogre named Shrek, Cameron Diaz as the beautiful but very down-to-earth and feisty Princess Fiona, Eddie Murphy as a talkative donkey named Donkey, and John Lithgow as the villainous Lord Farquaad.
It was critically acclaimed as an animated film worthy of adult interest, with many adult-oriented jokes and themes but a simple enough plot and humor to appeal to...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0126029
A Civil Action is a 1998 film, starring John Travolta (as plaintiff's attorney Jan Schlichtmann) and Robert Duvall, based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Harr. Both the book and the film are based on the real-life case of Anderson v. Cryovac that took place in Woburn, Massachusetts in the 1980s.
Jan Schlichtmann (John Travolta) is a successful lawyer who has started his own practice. Early legal victories have made him wealthy and one of Boston's most eligible bachelors. All of this begins to collapse after Jan begins activity on one of his firm's cases, a lawsuit on behalf of the parents of deceased children in a small industrial town against the companies they believe to have polluted their water. The pollutant in question is trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent, and it appears to have caused fatal cases of leukemia and cancer, as well as a wide variety of other health problems, among the citizens of the town.
Jan believes that this case will be easily won, resulting...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120633
When a Pot Baron (Lithgown) is killed in a remote field in Northern California and his three farm hands (Phillippe, Thornton and Azaria) are the only witnesses, an odd comedy ensues as they try to take over the business while maintaining the illusion that the barron is still running the show. Little do they know the Baron's dealings are twisted and other suprises (including a guest appearnce by Bon Jovi) await as they try to stay one step ahead of everyone else. ...
http://imdb.com/title/tt0119305/
Princess Caraboo is a 1994 film, directed by Michael Austin, based on the real-life 19th-century character Princess Caraboo, who passed herself off in British society as an exotic princess who spoke a strange foreign language. She is played in the film by Phoebe Cates.
The film was written by Michael Austin and John Wells. The original music score was composed by Richard Hartley. The film's tagline is: "She was everything they dreamed of... and nothing they expected."
In 1817, a young woman appears in the English countryside, wearing exotic garb and speaking gibberish. She also bore unusual tattoos, that resembled Polynesian tattoos, on her legs. Delivered to a nearby manor, the mystery woman is sheltered by the Worralls, who are then persuaded by their suspicious butler Frixos to have the drifter tried for vagrancy and begging, capital crimes. At the hearing, however, the woman persuades the magistrates through pantomime that she is a princess of Japanese origin named Caraboo,...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110892
Cliffhanger is a 1993 action movie directed by Renny Harlin and starring Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow. Stallone plays a climber who becomes embroiled in a failed heist set in a U.S. Treasury plane flying through the Rocky Mountains. The film was a hit when it was released, making more than $250 million worldwide.
Cliffhanger is also in the Guinness Book of World Records for the costliest aerial stunt ever performed. Stuntman Simon Crane was paid $1 million to perform the aerial transfer scene, where he crossed between two planes at an altitude of 4,572 m (15,000 ft).
Taglines:Sylvester Stallone plays Gabe Walker, a climber, who in the opening scene of the movie loses his confidence after a rescue goes wrong, resulting in the death of his friend's girlfriend. Gabe is then called back to perform a final rescue by his ex-girlfriend and overcomes his inner demons to help the bitter ex-friend with the rescue.
During the rescue, the two climbers are taken prisoner by ruthless thieves...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106582
Raising Cain is a 1992 film starring John Lithgow. It was directed by Brian De Palma, and is rated R. The film also stars Steven Bauer and Frances Sternhagen.
Raising Cain is a psychological thriller which tells the story of a traumatized child psychologist (Lithgow), who kidnaps children.
Dr. Carter Nix is a respected child psychologist. His wife Jenny played by Lolita Davidovich is an oncologist. Dr. Carter Nix takes time away from his flourishing practice to care for their two-year-old daughter, Amy. Jenny becomes concerned that Carter is obsessively studying their child. Rather than appreciating her youth, he regards her like a scientist tracking the development of his creation.
The audience quickly learns that Carter suffers from multiple personality disorder. His multiples are Cain, a streetwise hustler, Josh, a little boy, and Margo, a middle-aged mother figure. Carter/Cain are killing young mothers to procure their babies and toddlers.
In a side story we learn that...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105217
Ricochet is a 1991 crime-thriller film, directed by Russell Mulcahy and starring Denzel Washington, John Lithgow, Ice-T, Kevin Pollack, and Lindsay Wagner.
The film begins in 1984, depicting Washington as Nicholas Styles, a rookie officer of the Los Angeles Police Department and law student. The young Styles is witnessing the beginning of his career and adult life, as he meets his future wife (played by Victoria Dillard) and is drifting away from his childhood friend, Odessa (Ice-T), who is drifting into a life of crime in South Central Los Angeles, where the two of them grew up.
One evening, while Styles and his partner Larry Doyle (Pollack) are patrolling a carnival, they intervene and block the escape of a vicious organized-crime hitman, Earl Talbot Blake (Lithgow), and his servile accomplice Kim, shortly after Blake has murdered several drug dealers and stolen drugs. Styles catches Blake at gunpoint in the carnival, and is forced into a standoff when Blake takes a hostage at...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102789
At Play in the Fields of the Lord is a 1991 drama film directed by Hector Babenco.The screenplay was written by Babenco and Jean-Claude Carrière, and based on the novel by Peter Matthiessen.It stars Tom Berenger, Aidan Quinn, Kathy Bates, Daryl Hannah, John Lithgow and Tom Waits.The films tells of Americans Lewis Moon (Tom Berenger) and Wolf (Tom Waits) who, when their plane runs out of gas, are stranded in Mae de Deus an outpost in the deep Brazilian Amazon River basin.Living in the village are evangelist missionary Leslie Huben (John Lithgow) and his wife Andy Huben (Darryl Hannah); and Martin Quarier(Aidan Quinn), his wife Hazel (Kathy Bates) and their small son, who have just arrived from the United States.The minister and the Quarriers want to spread the Christian gospel to the primitive Niaruna indigenous natives, the others have more nefarious interests, to wit: business concerns that would lay claim to the Niaruna's land for business development.The local police chief cuts...,
Memphis Belle is a 1990 film directed by Michael Caton-Jones and written by Monte Merrick, starring Matthew Modine and Eric Stoltz and introducing Harry Connick Jr. in his screen debut. It is a fictionalization of the 1944 documentary Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress by director William Wyler, about the 25th and last mission of a American B17 bomber, the Memphis Belle, which was based in England during World War II. The 1990 version was produced by Wyler's daughter Catherine and dedicated to her father.
Memphis Belle depicts the day leading up to the crew's final mission, as well as a depiction of the mission itself. The B-17 is named "Memphis Belle" after pilot Dennis Dearborn's girlfriend back home in the States, who is not depicted in the film other than in a black and white photograph kept on the pilot's console.
In their 25th mission, the 10-man-crew is to bomb a factory in Bremen. At first, the flight is delayed because of clouds above the target, but finally they...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100133
Distant Thunder is a 1988 American drama film, directed by Rick Rosenthal and starring John Lithgow and Ralph Macchio.
Tagline: A hero of war. A casualty of peace, with only one hope for survival...his son.
The film tells the story of troubled Vietnam war veteran Mark Lambert (John Lithgow), who, upon returning home from the war, alienates his wife and child by deserting them and moving away into the remote wilderness of Washington state.
After 10 years of living off the land and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Mark Lambert decides to rejoin civilized society and find his now teenage son, who is living in Illinois. As an estranged father and recluse, Mark Lambert quickly finds himself unprepared for the changes that he must face.
...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095036
Harry and the Hendersons is a 1987 American film directed and produced by William Dear, and starring John Lithgow, Melinda Dillon, Lainie Kazan and Don Ameche, and was about the cryptozoological creature Bigfoot. It was also made into a follow-up TV series.The Henderson family, on their way home to Seattle from a camping trip, accidentally run over an unknown creature. Not knowing what to do, they decide to strap it to the roof of their car and take it home. At their house, the creature goes wild and rampages through the house. Slowly, they come to realize that the creature is Bigfoot and that it is actually very gentle. It is also given the name "Harry." Harry escapes and runs through the city. Sightings of him strikes fear into the city's citizens. The Hendersons have to hide Harry from the Seattle city authorities and a French Canadian hunter who wants him dead. They come to realize that the best thing for Harry is to let him go back to the woods, which they do at the end of the...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093148
The Manhattan Project was an American film released on June 13, 1986. Named after the World War II-era program, the plot revolves around a gifted high school student who decides to construct a nuclear bomb for a national science fair. The film's underlying theme involves the 1980's Cold War when government secrecy and mutually assured destruction were key political and military issues. Costing $500,000 to produce, the film grossed $3,900,000 USD at the box office. It was directed by Marshall Brickman, based upon his screenplay co-written with Thomas Baum, and starred Christopher Collet, John Lithgow, John Mahoney, and Cynthia Nixon.
Dr. John Mathewson (John Lithgow) discovers a new process for refining plutonium to purities greater than 99.99 percent. The U.S. government provides him a laboratory located near a suburban neighborhood in Ithaca, New York masked as the medical company, Medatomics. Mathewson moves to Ithaca and meets real estate agent Elizabeth Stephens (Jill Eikenberry)...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091472
Santa Claus: The Movie is a 1985 Christmas film starring Dudley Moore and John Lithgow. It is the last major fantasy film produced by the Paris-based father-and-son production team of Alexander and Ilya Salkind. The film was directed by Jeannot Szwarc and released in North America on November 27, 1985 by Tri-Star Pictures. The 2005 DVD release was released by Anchor Bay Entertainment, now Starz Home Entertainment.Santa Claus: The Movie is a straightforward, nondenominational attempt to explore the mysteries of Santa Claus with the key objective being to answer some of the basic questions many children have about Santa. The film explains how Santa's reindeer fly, how he and his wife made it to the North Pole and how Santa ascends chimneys, among other things.The film chronicles the origins of Santa (David Huddleston), who, along with his wife Anya (Judy Cornwell), goes from being a simple working man to becoming an international icon of Christmas. At the same time, the film also tells...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089961
2010 is a science fiction film released in 1984 directed by Peter Hyams. It was based on the novel 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke. The film, like the novel, is a sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Keir Dullea and Douglas Rain reprise their roles from the original film as David Bowman and the voice of HAL 9000, respectively. (Conveniently, Dullea did not age visibly, although he does get artificially aged for certain scenes in both films.) Roy Scheider plays Heywood Floyd (William Sylvester declined the role because he was semi-retired). The film also stars John Lithgow, Helen Mirren, and Bob Balaban, along with several Russian actors who play cosmonauts. Credited under the name Olga Mallsnerd, Candice Bergen provided the voice of the SAL 9000 computer at Dr. Chandra's laboratory in the film. [1] Arthur C. Clarke himself makes a cameo appearance in the film as a man on a park bench outside the White House (out of frame in the pan-and-scan version, but visible in the letterboxed...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086837
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! (also more simply referred to as Buckaroo Banzai) is a science fiction film that has reached cult film status. It was released in 1984, directed and produced by W. D. Richter and it stars Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Goldblum and Clancy Brown.
The film is a cross between the action / adventure and science-fiction movie genres, and also includes elements of comedy, satire, and romance. It is also made to feel like one of a series of movies, or like the middle chapter in a book, by the use of ongoing allusions to other characters, adventures and events.
Buckaroo Banzai spans roughly 50 years and begins in the middle of the story. It doesn't fill in some of the earliest parts of the story until the viewpoint characters themselves unravel the mystery — roughly halfway through the movie. In its essentials, the plot concerns the efforts of the multi-talented Dr. Buckaroo Banzai (whose careers...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086856
Footloose is a 1984 movie that tells the story of Ren McCormick (played by Kevin Bacon), a teenager who was raised in Chicago. McCormick moves to a small town where the town government has banned dancing and rock music. Ren and his classmates want to have a senior prom with music and dancing. They must figure out a way to get around the law and Reverend Shaw Moore (played by John Lithgow) who makes it his mission in life to keep the town free from dancing and rock music. The movie was loosely based on events that took place in the tiny, rural farming community of Elmore City, Oklahoma. Much of the film was filmed in Payson, Utah and Lehi, Utah, with the Lehi Roller Mills featured finely.
Dean Pitchford wrote the screenplay for Footloose, Herbert Ross directed the movie, and Paramount Pictures co-produced and distributed it. Footloose also starred Lori Singer as Reverend Moore's independent daughter Ariel and Dianne Wiest as Vi, the Reverend's devoted yet sympathetic wife. Footloose...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087277
Terms of Endearment is a 1983 American drama film and romantic comedy adapted by James L. Brooks from the novel by Larry McMurtry.
Actor Jack Nicholson's character, astronaut Garrett Breedlove, does not appear in the novel. The part was created for Burt Reynolds, but he was already committed to another film, so it was handed to James Garner. Garner quarrelled with the director over differing interpretations. The part then went to Harrison Ford who turned it down because he didn't like the age difference between himself and Shirley MacLaine. The role wound up going to Nicholson. Debra Winger and Sissy Spacek were the original choices for the mother and daughter roles. The film was originally rated R for sexual content and language but re-rated PG on appeal.
The movie tells the story of a mother/daughter relationship and both women's inconclusive search for love.
It opens with the newborn Emma in her cradle, sleeping. Her mother, Aurora, comes in to check on her infant and does not...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086425
The Day After is an American television movie which aired on November 20 1983 on the ABC Television Network. The film portrays a fictional nuclear war between the United States/NATO and the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact and its effects on the residents of Lawrence, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri, and several family farms situated next to nearby nuclear-missile silos. The film was written by Edward Hume and directed by Nicholas Meyer. The film was released on DVD on May 18 2004.
The chronology of the events leading up to the war is shown entirely through a series of news announcements on television and radio. The Soviet Union has commenced a military buildup in East Germany, with the goal of intimidating the United States into abandoning its forces and support of West Berlin. The U.S. does not back down. Soviet tank divisions are sent to the West-East German border.
During the late hours of Friday, September 15, news broadcasts report of "wide-spread rebellion among several divisions of the...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404
Twilight Zone: The Movie is a 1983 film produced by Steven Spielberg as a theatrical version of The Twilight Zone, a 1950s and 60s TV series created by Rod Serling. It starred Dan Aykroyd, Albert Brooks, Vic Morrow and John Lithgow.
The film remade three classic episodes of the original series and included one original story. John Landis directed the prologue and the first segment, Spielberg directed the second, Joe Dante the third, and George Miller directed the final segment.
The film is perhaps best known for the helicopter accident which took the lives of actor Vic Morrow and two illegally hired child actors, although in the subsequent trial no one was held criminally culpable for the accident.
You're traveling through another dimension. A dimension, not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!
The film starts with a driver (Albert Brooks) and his passenger (Dan Aykroyd) driving...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086491
Blow Out is a 1981 thriller film, written and directed by Brian De Palma. The title and themes derive from and are an homage to Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film Blowup. The film stars John Travolta as Jack Terry, a movie sound effects technician from Philadelphia who, while recording sounds for a low-budget horror film, accidentally captures audio evidence of the possible assassination of the Pennsylvania governor who was planning to run for President. The supporting cast included Nancy Allen (in the role of Sally, a prostitute who was riding in the governor's limousine when he was killed), Dennis Franz as sleazy private investigator, Manny Karp, a Zapruderesque figure, and John Lithgow as the coldblooded assassin Burke aka 'The Liberty Bell Strangler'Jack works as a sound technician in the film industry, mainly associated with a producer of sleazy exploitation horror films. One of his current problems is that he needs an authentic scream for a crucial scene in his current project....,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082085
Obsession is a 1976 psychological thriller/mystery directed by Brian De Palma, starring Cliff Robertson, Geneviève Bujold, and John Lithgow. The screenplay was by Paul Schrader, from a story by De Palma and Schrader. Bernard Herrmann provided the film's powerful music. The story is about a New Orleans businessman who is haunted by guilt following the death of his wife and daughter during a kidnapping-rescue attempt. Years after the tragedy, he meets and falls in love with a young woman who is the exact look-alike of his long dead wife.Both De Palma and Schrader have pointed to Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) as the major inspiration for Obsession's narrative and thematic concerns. Schrader's script was extensively rewritten and pared down by De Palma himself prior to shooting, causing the screenwriter to proclaim complete disinterest in the film's subsequent production and release. Completed in 1975, Columbia Pictures picked up the distribution rights but demanded that minor changes...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074991
John Lithgow was born
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