John Lithgow was born on October 19, 1945, into a theatrical family in Rochester, New York, USA. John Arthur Lithgow’s full name is John Arthur Lithgow. He is a mixed-race American of Welsh, English, Scots-Irish, Northern Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Arthur Washington Lithgow III (father) and Sarah Jane (mother) are his parents’ names.
His father is a well-known producer and director who previously ran Princeton, New Jersey’s McCarter Theatre. Similarly, his mother was an actress in the past. He also has a younger brother named Robin Lithgow. In Princeton, New Jersey, John Lithgow attended Princeton High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history and literature from Harvard College in 1967.
While at Harvard, he was heavily involved in student theater, acting, and directing. He made his Harvard debut in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Utopia Limited. Likewise, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Following graduation, he worked as the Director of the Arts and Literature Department at WBAI, the Pacifica radio station in New York City.
