John Wesley Shipp

Early life

Shipp was born in Norfolk, Virginia. His father was a farmer who returned to school when Shipp was young, and after attending the seminary in Wake Forest, he became the pastor of a small church outside Wake Forest, North Carolina. Shipp later gave a keynote speech to the graduating class of Wake Forest Rolesville High School Class of 1999 to recount the tale of his father's attempts to integrate the community in the late 1960s.

Shipp attended Butler High School in Louisville, Kentucky and then attended Indiana University.

Career

Shipp began his career with a regular role on the daytime soap opera Guiding Light, playing Dr. Kelly Nelson from 1980 to 1984. Shipp followed this with more roles in daytime, playing Douglas Cummings on As the World Turns from 1985 to 1986 (which earned him his first Daytime Emmy Award in 1986), and Martin Ellis on Santa Barbara in 1987 (for which he won his second Daytime Emmy Award), followed by Blanchard Lovelace on One Life to Live in 1989, and Carter Jones on All My Children in 1992. He also had guest appearances on primetime series, such as playing a peeper on an episode of Fantasy Island in 1983.

Shipp won the title role of Barry Allen/The Flash on the CBS series The Flash, which aired in the 1990–91 season. He followed this with the recurring role of Lucky on the NBC series Sisters from 1994 to 1995. Shipp also appeared on stage in the 1990s, starring in Erik Jendresen's The Killing of Michael Malloy in 1993. In 1998, he was cast as Mitch Leery, the father of the lead character Dawson, on The WB drama series Dawson's Creek; Shipp remained part of the series' main cast through its first four seasons, exiting in 2001.

In November 2010, Shipp returned to daytime in the short-term role of villainous Eddie Ford on One Life to Live, who was killed off in a murder mystery in mid-December. In the summer of 2011, he guest-starred on the Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva, playing the ex-husband of the character played by comedian Kathy Griffin. Shipp filmed three episodes of the MTV series Teen Wolf which aired during the summer of 2012. Also in 2012, he starred in the independent film Hell and Mr. Fudge, with Mackenzie Astin and Eileen Davidson.

Shipp returned to involvement with The Flash in the 2010s. He was cast in a "mysterious" role on The CW series The Flash in early 2014, which was later revealed to be the recurring role of Henry Allen, the father of titular character. In the second-season finale of The Flash, Shipp played Jay Garrick, an alternate universe counterpart of The Flash and continues to guest star in the role of Garrick into the fourth 2017-2018 season He also provided the voice to the villain Professor Eobard "Zoom" Thawne, the Reverse-Flash, in a 2010 episode of the animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Awards and nominations

At the 14th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in 1987, Shipp won the Outstanding Guest Performer Award (in a category that included Celeste Holm, Eileen Heckart and Terrance Mann) becoming the only actor with consecutive wins from two different daytime dramas.