Alan Cumming

Early life

Cumming was born in Aberfeldy, Perthshire, Scotland, the son of mother Mary Darling, an insurance company secretary, and of father, Alex Cumming, the head forester of Atholl Estate. Brought up in Angus, Cumming attended Monikie Primary School and Carnoustie High School. Cumming grew up on a country estate called Panmure Estate near Carnoustie on the east coast of Scotland. He describes the environment as "feudal". He has a brother, Tom, who is six years older, and a niece and two nephews. His brother is a property manager in Southampton, England.

In his autobiography Not My Father's Son, Cumming describes emotional and physical violence his father inflicted on him in childhood. His mother found it impossible to obtain a divorce until she was financially independent. Cumming said that after he reached his early 20s, he did not have any communication with his father until just before the filming of his episode of the series Who Do You Think You Are? He then found out that his father had believed that Cumming was not his biological son. Later, Cumming and his brother took DNA tests that proved they were indeed his biological children.

Cumming said that his difficult childhood taught him how to act by "needing to suppress my own emotions and feelings around him [his father] when I was a little boy".

Film

Cumming made his film debut in Gillies MacKinnon's Passing Glory in 1986. His feature film debut came in 1992 when he starred alongside Sandrine Bonnaire and Bruno Ganz in Ian Sellar's Prague, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and earned him the Best Actor award at the Atlantic Film Festival and a Scottish BAFTA Best Actor nomination. American audiences first saw him playing the oleaginous Sean Walsh, an unwanted suitor of Minnie Driver's character, in Circle of Friends, an Irish film released in 1995. Also in 1995 he played Boris Ivanovich Grishenko in the James Bond film GoldenEye. In 1996, he had a success as the Revd Mr Elton in Emma.

His first film in the United States was 1997's Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, playing Sandy Frink opposite Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino. Cumming co-wrote, co-directed, co-produced, and co-starred in the ensemble film The Anniversary Party with friend and former Cabaret co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh, in 2001. The two starred in the film as a Hollywood couple. The film premiered at Cannes and garnered two Independent Spirit nominations and a National Board of Review award. He went on to star in and direct Suffering Man's Charity later released as Ghost Writer.

He had prominent roles in the Spy Kids trilogy (as Fegan Floop), X2 (as Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler), Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and played Saturninus in the 1999 Julie Taymor film production of Titus. His many other films include Investigating Sex, Josie and the Pussycats, Emma, Get Carter, Plunkett and Macleane, Son of the Mask, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, Full Grown Men, Spice World, Burlesque, The Tempest, Boogie Woogie and the animated films Garfield: The Movie, Jackboots on Whitehall and The Smurfs.

Earlier in his career, Cumming also directed two short films, Butter and Burn Your Phone. The latter began its life as a one-off drama on BBC Radio 4.

United Kingdom

In 1986, Cumming made his TV debut in the Scottish Television series Take the High Road and Taggart. His breakthrough role was as Bernard Bottle in the Christmas 1991 BBC comedy Bernard and the Genie, a Richard Curtis-scripted film in which he starred alongside Lenny Henry and Rowan Atkinson. He also featured in a comic relief sketch in 1993 on the popular UK TV show Blind Date with Atkinson playing Mr. Bean. Cumming went on to star as flight attendant Sebastian Flight in the BBC2 sitcom The High Life in 1995. The series was written by Cumming and co-star Forbes Masson, continuing an acting-writing partnership the two had developed since their drama school days.

Cumming returned to British TV screens in 2011 to star as Desrae, a transvestite, on the Sky series The Runaway. He has also made several documentaries: My Brilliant Britain, about Scottish humour, The Real Cabaret in which he investigated the Weimar cabaret artistes and the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? in 2010 in which he discovered his maternal grandfather was a war hero who had died playing Russian roulette.

United States

Cumming was the voice to the animated character The Devil in God, the Devil and Bob. Cumming has guested on several US TV shows: In 2001, he appeared in the HBO comedy Sex and the City as O the designer in the episode, 'The Real Me'. In 2003, he appeared in a cameo role in the sitcom Frasier, playing Niles' yoga instructor. He also guest starred on 3rd Rock from the Sun.

Cumming played the role of Bill Blaikie, a gay drag queen party promoter hired by Kit Porter to manage her café cum nightclub, in season 3 of The L Word. His character had an affair with Max, a transgender male character in the show. He appeared in episodes 2 to 7, which originally broadcast on Showtime in 2006.

In 2007, Cumming played Glitch/Ambrose, an inventor whose brain had been partially removed, in the TV miniseries, Tin Man. He also provided the voice of Chuck Masters, a 50-year-old, paralysed, HIV-positive gay man in Logo's Rick and Steve, a stop animation sitcom created by Q. Allan Brocka. Cumming also hosted the Oxygen cable television show, "Eavesdropping with Alan Cumming", in which he interviewed female co-stars of his film roles, and "Midnight Snack", where he and his dogs introduced cult films. Cumming hosted Saturday Night Live in 2000, with musical guest Jennifer Lopez.

He is also the host of the 2008–2014 seasons of the PBS Masterpiece Mystery! series.

He played Eli Gold on the CBS television show The Good Wife. He appeared as a guest star in the latter third of the first season, becoming a series regular in the show's 2010–2011 season. He has been nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Golden Globe Award and a Satellite Award for his performance.

In 2009, Cumming guest-starred in Lisa Kudrow's improvised web series Web Therapy, portraying Austen Clarke, a possible love interest for Kudrow's character, Fiona Wallice. In 2010, Showtime announced plans to air Web Therapy as a TV series, and Cumming's guest appearance was broadcast as part of the first-season finale of the show on 20 September 2011. Originally, the character was intended for a one-off appearance, however, plans were later changed and Cumming became a recurring cast member during the TV series' second season in 2012.

In 2016 NBC’s First look travel programme visited Scotland for a special episode, fronting Alan Cumming. It featured areas of the country that are important to Alan Cumming and showcased Scotland through his eyes. The programme was named Best Lifestyle Programme at the Emmys' 60th annual awards ceremony at New York's Marriott Marquis Broadway Ballroom.

Theatre

Cumming began his theatre career in his native Scotland, performing in seasons with the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, Dundee Rep, The Tron Glasgow and tours with Borderline, Theatre Workshop, and Glasgow Citizens' TAG. He played Slupianek in the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh's 1988 production of Conquest of the South Pole, which later transferred to the Royal Court in London and earned him an Olivier Award nomination as Most Promising Newcomer. He went on to perform plays with the Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company and played Valere in La Bete at the Lyric, Hammersmith, London. In 1991 he played The Madman in the 1990 Royal National Theatre production of Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo, for which he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance. He also adapted the play with director Tim Supple. In 1993 he received great critical acclaim and the TMA Best Actor award for playing title role in the 1993 English Touring Theatre's Hamlet (playing opposite his then-wife, Hilary Lyon, in the role of Ophelia).He played the role of The Master of Ceremonies in Sam Mendes's 1993 revival of the musical Cabaret in London's West End opposite Jane Horrocks as Sally Bowles. He received an Olivier Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical. He reprised the role in 1998 for the Mendes-Rob Marshall Broadway revival, this time opposite Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles. He won a Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for his performance.

Other US stage roles include Otto in the 2001 Broadway production of Design for Living by Noël Coward, Mac the Knife in Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill musical The Threepenny Opera opposite Cyndi Lauper. Cumming performed alongside Dianne Wiest in Classic Stage Company's production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, directed by Viacheslav Dolgachev. In 2002, Cumming and then-boyfriend British director Nick Philippou formed the production company The Art Party. The company's first and only play was the first English production of Jean Genet's play Elle, which Cumming had adapted from a literal translation by Terri Gordon. The company folded in 2003.

In 2006, he returned to the West End playing the lead role in Bent, a play about homosexuals in Germany under the Nazis. In 2007, he took the lead role in the National Theatre of Scotland's production of The Bacchae, directed by John Tiffany, which premiéred at the Edinburgh International Festival in August, transferring to the Lyric Theatre in London and then to Lincoln Center, New York, winning him Herald Archangel award.

He collaborated again with Tiffany and the National Theatre of Scotland in 2012, playing all the roles in Macbeth. He brought this critically acclaimed production of Macbeth to New York's Lincoln Center in 2012 and to a 73-show Broadway engagement at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in 2013. Macbeth concluded its run on Broadway on 14 July 2013.

In 2014, he returned again to Broadway to star in Roundabout Theater Company's revival production of Cabaret, directed again by Sam Mendes. Starring opposite Michelle Williams, Cabaret opened 24 April 2014 and closed 29 March 2015. The run was extended originally from its 24-week engagement. The role of Sally has changed throughout the production when Williams left to include Emma Stone and Sienna Miller.

Other work

Cumming's novel, Tommy's Tale, was published in 2002. He has also written articles for magazines, notably as a contributing editor for Marie Claire magazine, writing on the haute couture shows in Paris, as well as what it was like for him dressing as a woman for a day. He also contributed articles to Newsweek, Modern Painters, Out, Black Book and The Wall Street Journal. He has also written introductions and prefaces to various books, including the works of Nancy Mitford, Andy Warhol, and Christopher Isherwood and wrote a chapter of If You Had Five Minutes with the President, a collection of 55+ essays by members or supporters of The Creative Coalition.

Personal life

In March 2005, Cumming received the Vito Russo Award at the 16th Annual GLAAD Media Awards for outstanding contributions toward eliminating homophobia. In July of the same year, he was also presented with the HRC's Humanitarian Award in San Francisco, also for his LGBT public stance. In November 2006, Cumming received a Doctor of Arts honorary degree from the University of Abertay Dundee. He also is a patron of the Scottish Youth Theatre, Scotland's National Theatre 'for and by' young people. Cumming was appointed an OBE in the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to film, theatre and the arts, and activism for LGBT rights.

Previous relationships include an eight-year marriage to actress Hilary Lyon, a two-year relationship with actress Saffron Burrows, and a six-year relationship with theatre director Nick Philippou. In 2006, Cumming stated that he "would dearly like to adopt a child," but that his life was "too hectic" for children.

Cumming is bisexual. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, illustrator Grant Shaffer, and their dogs, Jerry and Lala. The couple dated for two years before becoming civil partners at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London, on 7 January 2007. Cumming and Shaffer legally married in New York on 7 January 2012, the fifth anniversary of their London union.

On 7 November 2008, Cumming became a dual-national and was sworn in as a citizen of the United States of America at a ceremony in New York City.

Cumming has promoted LGBT rights, MC-ing and attending fundraisers for organisations such as the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), and taking part in an Equality Network video campaign, from New York, promoting the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Scotland. Cumming also supports several AIDS charities, including the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AMFAR) and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, and is also a patron of NORM-UK, an English-registered charity concerned with foreskin health and matters related to circumcision; he has condemned the practice of routine infant circumcision, particularly in the United States where it is common.

Cumming has stated that since 2012 he has maintained a vegan diet. PETA awarded him their Humanitarian Award in 2017.

Cumming is an atheist.

Books