Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight is an award-winning film, television and stage actor. He has appeared in more than 100 films and television series, as well as major theatrical productions in London and on Broadway.

Today's Out Spotlight is Alan Cumming.

Alan Cumming was born January 27, 1965 in Aberfeldy, Perthshire, Scotland and grew up on the east coast of the country in the village of Angus , the son of a forester (his father Alex) and a secretary (his mother Mary). He attended Monikie Primary School and Carnoustie High School.  As a teenager, he began appearing in high school plays and local theater productions.

 Following graduation, he spent a year and a half employed as an editor and columnist for the pop and TV magazine TOPS before entering the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow where he received a B.A. in dramatic studies.

After graduation, he worked in Scottish theater and television before moving to London. In 1985, he married fellow acting student Hilary Lyon. The couple divorced eight years later.

In London, Cumming performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre. He received two Olivier Awards, including Best Actor in a Musical for playing the Emcee in “Cabaret.” In 1998, he reprised this role on Broadway, receiving a Tony Award for his performance. He returned to role for the 2014 revival of the musical co-staring Michelle Williams.

Cumming’s many film credits include “Golden Eye,” “Emma,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Nicholas Nickleby,” “X2,” and “Burlesque.” On television, he has appeared on “Frasier,” “The L Word,” “Sex and the City,” Logo’s “Rick & Steve: The Happiest Gay Couple in All the World,” and on the hit series “The Good Wife” as conniving campaign manager Eli Gold.

In 1998, Entertainment Weekly named Cumming one of the 100 Most Creative People in the World. In 2008, he received the Trevor Hero Award from The Trevor Project for being “a true role model for gay and questioning youth through his spectacular and highly successful career.”

In March 2005, Cumming received the Vito Russo Award at the 16th Annual GLAAD Media Awards for outstanding contributions toward eliminating homophobia. Also in 2005 he was presented with the HRC's Humanitarian Award in San Francisco, also for his LGBT public stance. In November 2006 Cumming received a Doctor of Arts honorary degree from the University of Abertay Dundee.

A patron of the Scottish Youth Theatre, Scotland's National Theatre 'for and by' young people, he was appointed an OBE in the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to film, theatre and the arts and activism for LGBT rights.

He has not limited himself to the stage and screen, Cumming has also written a novel, Tommy's Tale, had a cable talk show called Eavesdropping with Alan Cumming, and produced a line of perfumed products labelled "Cumming".

He contributes opinion pieces to many publications and performed a cabaret show entitledI Bought A Blue Car Today. In 2013, he brought a one-man Macbeth to the stage, playing all parts of the Shakespearean masterpiece.

Retaining his British citizenship, Cumming became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2008.

While was once described as "a frolicky pansexual sex symbol for the new millennium," Cumming publicly stated in 2013 that he considers himself bisexual, "although the pendulum has obviously swung." His previous relationships include his eight-year marriage to actress Hilary Lyon, a two-year relationship with actress Saffron Burrows, and a six-year relationship with theater director Nick Philippou, before meeting his longtime partner and now husband Grant Shaffer, a graphic artist.

Cumming and Shaffer entered into a civil partnership at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London on January 7, 2007. The couple remarried in New York on their fifth anniversary. They currently live in New York City with their dogs, Honey and Leon.


 “We need to do everything we can to counteract hatred and shame and we need to be strong in this fight.”