Alan Cumming, Tony Award®-winner for Cabaret, comes to The Straz April 3 for an evening of song and chit-chat about a topic we all have in common, but try to avoid – AGING.
Here are five fun facts about Alan Cumming:
- He made a successful transition from a Scottish sitcom to film in small but resonate roles in GoldenEye and Circle of Friends, both released in 1995. He also appeared with Gwyneth Paltrow in Jane Austen’s Emma (1996) and the comedies, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion (1997) and Spice World (1998). One of his more popular film roles was the teleporting blue mutant, Nightcrawler, from 2003’s X2: X-Men United.
- U.S. TV watchers are likely familiar with Cumming’s popular character Eli Gold from CBS’s The Good Wife, starring Julianna Margulies. He will reprise the character later this year on the Paramount+ sequel series The Good Fight starring Christine Baranski. Cumming’s character is father to Marissa Gold (Sarah Steele) who moved to the new series when Good Wife ended in 2016. Eli will appear in two episodes (maybe more, we hope) to help his daughter “navigate her new career as a full-fledged lawyer.”
- Alan was married to actress Hilary Lyon for seven years. He entered a civil partnership with commercial artist Grant Shaffer in 2007 – and officially married him in 2012. They live in New York City with their two dogs Jerry and Lala.
- Alan, who is bisexual, is a passionate activist for civil rights, sex education and social justice causes that have earned him more than 40 awards.
- In 2021, he began the podcast Alan Cumming’s Shelves sharing stories of curiosities and oddities on his bookshelves. He revealed to The Guardian that one of his most precious belongings is a Minnie Mouse snow globe he bought at Disneyland Paris. He purchased it at a low point in his life and it reminds him that “there is hope in the world. … It is a talisman for me about how things do get better, and you can rise from the pits of despair.”