The Biography

Gary Houston (born December 17, 1948, in California) is an American stage, film, and television actor, playwright, and theatre director whose career has spanned over 60 years. He is best known for his work in Chicago's theater scene, where he has been active since 1969. A former production coordinator and writer at the Chicago Sun-Times, Houston created the original role of Roger (the "Mooning King of Rydell High") in the world premiere of Grease at the Kingston Mines Theatre Company in Chicago, where his wife Hedda Lubin (married December 30, 2004) originated the role of Frenchie. As a director, he won the Joseph Jefferson Award for Overall Technical Design for the 1977 Chicago premiere of Peter Handke's Kaspar at Goodman Theatre, and directed the first production to open at Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Wallace Shawn's Our Late Night, 1977), with a cast that included John Malkovich, Terry Kinney, Laurie Metcalf, and Joan Allen. His film and television credits include The Blues Brothers (1980), Major League (1989), A League of Their Own (1992), Hoffa (1992), Fargo (1996), Proof (2005), The Astronaut Farmer (2007), Eagle Eye (2008), Watchmen (2009), Game Day (2018), Princess Cyd (2017), and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023). On television he has appeared in Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, Chicago Justice, Fargo (TV), Shameless, Prison Break, Shining Girls, and Leverage. He also taught Acting for Film at Columbia College Chicago, taking over the class from his friend Joe Mantegna, and is a published playwright and short fiction writer with work in the Chicago Quarterly Review.