The Biography

Alan Cumming, OBE FRSE (born January 27, 1965) is a Scottish stage and screen actor, singer, comedian, director, producer and author. He is best known for playing Emcee in Cabaret on stage, Boris Grishenko in the James Bond movie Goldeneye, Nightcrawler in X2, Fegan Floop in the Spy Kids trilogy, starring as Dylan Reinhart on the series Instinct, Clyde Brattle on the series Briarpatch, and the recurring role of Eli Gold on the CBS series The Good Wife, for which he was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Satellite Award. His London stage appearances include Hamlet, the Maniac in Accidental Death of an Anarchist (for which he received an Olivier Award), the lead in Bent, The National Theatre of Scotland's The Bacchae and Samuel Beckett's Endgame at The Old Vic, opposite Daniel Radcliffe. On Broadway, he has appeared in The Threepenny Opera, as the master of ceremonies in Cabaret (for which he won a Tony Award), Design for Living, and a one-man adaptation of Macbeth. In 2022, he received a Tony Award for Best Musical as a producer for the musical A Strange Loop. He has written a novel, Tommy's Tale (2002), an autobiography, Not My Father's Son: A Memoir (2014), and a topical memoir, Baggage: Tales from a Fully Packed Life (2019). He hosted a cable talk show called Eavesdropping with Alan Cumming and produced a line of perfumed products labelled "Cumming". He has also contributed opinion pieces to many publications and performed the cabaret shows, I Bought a Blue Car Today and Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs. In 2021, he appeared in the Apple TV+ series Schmigadoon! On 7 November 2008, he became a dual-national and was sworn in as a citizen of the United States at a ceremony in New York City. He has promoted LGBT rights, MC-ing and attending fundraisers for many organizations, and he also supports several AIDS charities.