Mar 11, 1967

Glasgow, Scotland

John Barrowman is a Scottish-American actor, musical performer, dancer, singer, skater and TV presenter who has lived and worked both in the United Kingdom and the United States. He currently lives in the UK. He became a United States citizen in 1985, and holds dual US/UK citizenship.

Barrowman is best known on British television for his acting and presenting work. After appearing as Jack Harkness, a companion of the Doctor, in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who in ... ... (read more...) 2005, he is currently starring in spin-off series Torchwood. He has featured in such light entertainment shows as Live & Kicking and How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, as well as appearing on the celebrity ice skating show Dancing on Ice.

He was voted the 2006 Stonewall "Entertainer of the Year".<br/><br/>
He has appeared in several West End musicals, including Anything Goes, Miss Saigon, Beauty and the Beast, Matador, Hair, Grease!, Sunset Boulevard and The Phantom of the Opera (as Raoul).

He was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award in 1998 for his role in The Fix. He has also appeared in the West End in non-musical dramas, such as Rope and the 2005 production of A Few Good Men, in which Barrowman starred opposite Rob Lowe. Most recently he starred in Cinderella at the New Wimbledon Theatre for the 2005-2006 Christmas season.

He has played the role of Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard in the West End and, briefly, on Broadway. His only other Broadway credit is the Stephen Sondheim revue Putting It Together (1999–2000). In 2002, he appeared in the central role of Bobby in Sondheim's Company in the Kennedy Center's Stephen Sondheim Celebration.
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He is probably best known in the United States for starring roles in several short-lived prime-time soap operas such as Titans with Yasmine Bleeth in 2000 and Central Park West, as well as the low-budget cult film Shark Attack 3.

Barrowman was under consideration for the role of Will in the popular US series "Will and Grace" but the producers felt he was "too straight" and the role went to straight actor Eric McCormack instead. "The sad thing is it's run by gay men and women," said Barrowman in a January 2006 article. He later expressed contempt at the idea that all gay men act the same way.
He appeared in five episodes of the BBC One science fiction television series Doctor Who (2005) as Captain Jack Harkness, beginning in The Empty Child. Torchwood (an anagram of "Doctor Who"), a 13-part Doctor Who spin-off series set in modern-day Cardiff and investigating alien activities and crime is now showing on BBC Three, repeated weekly on BBC Two. In both shows the character is portrayed as omnisexual. Barrowman is also scheduled to return to Doctor Who in 2007.
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Barrowman's musical abilities have been featured in film: he had a duet with Kevin Kline in the Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely, and he sang "Springtime for Hitler" in the film of Mel Brooks' The Producers, based on the Broadway adaptation of the original movie.

He also recently performed in and co-presented another new BBC One series for Saturday nights, entitled The Sound of Musicals, in which performers from West End musicals sing songs from the shows.

For the 2006/7 pantomime season, he is due to appear as Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk at the New Theatre in Cardiff.