Résumé: Alan Cumming

Actor, singer, and dancer Alan Cumming’s career defines the word “eclectic.” An award-winning Hamlet and Cabaret Emcee, the Scot has voiced a Smurf, twice; made back-to-back films with Stanley Kubrick and the Spice Girls; appeared in a Jay-Z video; written a New York Times bestselling memoir, Not My Father’s Son; and designed an award-winning fragrance, Cumming.

Personal

50 years old, vegan, married to Grant Shaffer, grew up in Scotland
Likes: New York City, dogs, Beyonce
Dislikes: Intolerance, “Shakespeare inferiority complexes,” circumcision (he’s an “intactivist,” get it? )

Professional Highlights

Theater

Macbeth in Macbeth (2014) on Broadway. Starred in a tour-de-force one-man show.

The Emcee in Cabaret (2014 and 1998) on Broadway. Won the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Theatre World, FANY, New York Press, and New York Public Advocate’s Awards for his 1998 performance.

The Emcee in Cabaret (1993) in London

Film

Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler in X-Men 2 (2003)

Sandy Frink in Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997)

Sean Walsh in Circle of Friends (1995)

Television

 Eli Gold on The Good Wife (2009-present)

Education

Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow, Scotland
(now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland)
Graduated: 1985

Honors

Awarded an O.B.E. (Order of the British Empire) at Buckingham Palace (1999). Cumming was honored for his contributions to the   arts as well as his work as a gay-rights campaigner. Dressed in head-to-toe tartan, he admitted, “Yes, I have no underpants on.”

References

“A frolicky pansexual sex symbol for the new millennium.”
—The New York Observer

“You never know what Alan is going to do, then he does it—and he’s absolutely right … He’s irresistible.”
—Liza Minnelli,
in Vanity Fair

“His waggish persona (is) the elfin party animal with a diamond edge.”
—The New York Times

This article appeared in The Ticket, a 2015 special publication.