John Barrowman

John Barrowman
Birth date:	11 March 1967 (age 43) Glasgow, Scotland
Work in the DWU
Main roles:	Captain Jack Harkness

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John Barrowman with Torchwood co-star Eve Myles. Photo courtesy BBC

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John Barrowman

John Barrowman (born 11th March 1967 in Glasgow) appeared as Captain Jack Harkness, beginning in DW: The Empty Child in 2005, leaving the series after the Series 1 finale, The Parting of the Ways. Barrowman subsequently portrayed Captain Jack in a spin-off series, Torchwood, which premiered in Autumn 2006 and has to date aired three seasons, the most recent in 2009. Barrowman has also reprised Captain Jack in several episodes of Doctor Who in 2007 and 2008, in a number of audio dramas produced for BBC Radio, and the character also narrated the BBC Website feature The Monster Files until the Matt Smith took the role as the doctor, and Alex Kingston took over the role of Monster Files.

Barrowman was raised in Joliet, Illinois, and graduated from Joliet West High School in 1985. He is the son of a plant manager of the former Caterpillar Inc. tractor factory in Joliet. While still in high school, he won parts in several musical productions while still a freshman. Between 1983 and 1985 he performed in productions of Hello, Dolly!, Oliver!, Camelot, L'il Abner and Anything Goes. He attended university in San Diego, and returned to the United Kingdom in 1989. He has appeared in several West End musicals, including Anything Goes, Miss Saigon, Beauty and the Beast, Matador, Hair, Grease! and The Phantom of the Opera. 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 2005-6 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).

Barrowman appeared in the first run of the BBC Children's variety show Live & Kicking in 1993-1994, co-hosting the show with Andi Peters and Emma Forbes, before moving on to The Movie Game, a television game show. Live & Kicking saw Barrowman interviewing numerous science fiction alumni, including William Shatner, and also visiting the sets of SF productions such as Gerry Anderson's Space Precinct, as well as doing reports on video games.

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's musical abilities have been featured in film: he had a duet with Kevin Kline in the Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely, and he can be seen singing "Springtime for Hitler" in the film of Mel Brooks' The Producers, based on the Broadway adaptation of the original movie.

Barrowman, who is openly gay, has been with his partner, British architect Scott Gill, since 1994. Despite this long-standing relationship, Barrowman told The Herald of Glasgow that he had no plans to marry, saying, "Why would I want a 'marriage' from a belief system that hates me?". However, he and Gill became civil partners, but as Barrowman explained when the couple were interviewed by Attitude magazine, they do not want to call this a marriage "We're just going to sign the civil register. We're not going to have any ceremony because I'm not a supporter of the word marriage for a gay partnership.".

John Barrowman on horseback

Outside of Doctor Who and Torchwood, Barrowman has become somewhat ubiquitous on UK television, hosting everything from morning chat shows to musical retrospectives and also lending his talents to charity events such as Children in Need (he introduced the broadcast of Time Crash in 2007). He also conducted one of David Tennant's first television interviews after being named the new Doctor (more than a year before Barrowman found himself returning to Doctor Who opposite Tennant). In the summer of 2008, Barrowman served as one of the judges for both the UK BBC and Canadian CBC editions of the talent competition series, How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, which saw the actor commuting transcontinentally.

Barrowman is an avid Doctor Who fan beyond his work on the series, and this has been made evident in several DVD featurettes. In the Season 1 Doctor Who DVD set it's learned that Barrowman received a radio controlled Dalek for his birthday, and in the Season 3 set both he and fellow Who fan David Tennant mention that Barrowman's dog was named Tegan, after Tegan Jovanka. The blooper reel for Series 2 of Torchwood reveals that he has the Doctor Who theme as his ringtone when his mobile phone rings during filming.

In 2009, Barrowman hosted another talent series, Tonight's the Night, which culminated in a viewer winning a chance to appear opposite Barrowman (playing Jack once again) in a specially written Doctor Who skit. "Tonight's the Night" will be returning for a Second Season later in 2010.

John Barrowman is currently appearing in "Desperate Housewives" as Patrick Logan where he will feature in 6 episodes. Barrowman reprized the role of Captain Jack for a cameo in DW: The End of Time, Part Two.

Barrowman, who is often disarmingly open about his private life, has to date published two volumes of memoirs, both written in conjunction with his sister, Carole E. Barrowman: Anything Goes (2008) and I Am What I Am (2009); in the latter, Barrowman covers his years working on Doctor Who and Torchwood.

Barrowman has also recorded several musical CDs which have been released internationally, as well as audio book readings of Anything Goes and several Torchwood novels.

External links

• John Barrowman at the Internet Movie Database
• johnbarrowman.com
• John Barrowman at Famtic.com