John Lithgow on screen and stage
Year Title Role ( s )
1972 Dealing : Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues John
1976 Obsession Robert Laselle
1978 The Big Fix Sam Sebastian
1979 Rich Kids Paul Philips
1979 All That Jazz Lucas Sergeant
1981 Blow Out Burke
1982 I 'm Dancing as Fast as I Can Mr. Brunner
1982 The World According to Garp Roberta Muldoon
1983 Terms of Endearment Sam Burns
1983 Twilight Zone : The Movie John Valentine
1984 Footloose Reverend Shaw Moore
1984 The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension Dr. Emilio Lizardo Lord John Whorfin
1984 2010 Dr. Walter Curnow
1985 Santa Claus : The Movie B.Z
1986 My Letter to George Oliver Thompson
1986 The Manhattan Project John Mathewson
1987 Harry and the Hendersons George Henderson
1988 Distant Thunder Mark Lambert
1989 Out Cold Dave Geary
1990 Memphis Belle Lt. Col. Bruce Derringer
Film
John Lithgow is an American actor, musician, poet, author, comedian and singer. He made his film debut in the comedy-drama (1972). He has since then appeared in over 50 films, countless television projects and on stage. Lithgow's first appearance on stage came in 1973, in a Broadway production of The Changing Room by David Storey, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play and a Drama Desk Award. Some of his other theater work he performed in were My Fat Friend (1974), Trelawny of the 'Wells' (1975) and the 1976 plays A Memory of Two Mondays / 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, Secret Service and Boy Meets Girl. Lithgow subsequently acted in films such as Obsession (1976), The Big Fix (1978), the 1979 films All That Jazz with Roy Scheider and Rich Kids, Blow Out (1981) starring John Travolta and I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1982). Lithgow's breakthrough came after playing a former football player turned transsexual Roberta Muldoon in a supporting role in the comedy-drama The World According to Garp (1982) with Robin Williams. Lithgow was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role. He then portrayed an airplane passenger who suffers from aviophobia in (1983). Later the same year, Lithgow went on to play a science professor in the television disaster film The Day After, which won him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Special. As 1983 came to a close, he also featured in Terms of Endearment, where he played the role of a banker with Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger and Jack Nicholson, thus earning Lithgow his second Academy Award nomination in the same category. In addition, Lithgow had a string of main and supporting roles during the 1980s, notably in the 1984 films Footloose, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, 2010, , The Manhattan Project (1986) and Harry and the Hendersons (1987).