Nathan Lane

Nathan Lane (born Joseph Lane; February 3, 1956) is an American actor.

Lane was born Joseph Lane in Jersey City, New Jersey on February 3, 1956.

His father Daniel Joseph Lane was a truck driver and an aspiring tenor who died in 1967 from alcoholism when Lane was eleven.

Lane attended Catholic schools in Jersey City, including Jesuit-run St. Peter's Preparatory School, where he was voted Best Actor in 1974, and years later received the 2011 Prep Hall of Fame Professional Achievement Award.

Accepted to Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia on a drama scholarship, Lane was accompanied on what was supposed to be his first day there by his older brother Dan.

Discovering that the scholarship would not cover enough of his expenses, he decided to leave, and work for a year to earn some money.

His brother said, "I remember him saying to me, 'College is for people who don't know what they want to do.'"

Because there already was a Joseph Lane registered with Actors' Equity, he changed his name to Nathan after the character Nathan Detroit from the musical Guys and Dolls.

He moved to New York City where, after a long struggle, his career began to take off, first with some brief success in the world of stand-up comedy with partner Patrick Stack, and later with Off-Broadway productions at Second Stage Theatre, the Roundabout Theatre, and the Manhattan Theatre Club.

Since 1975, he has been seen on stage and screen in both comedic and dramatic roles.

Lane has received numerous awards, including three Tony Awards, six Drama Desk Awards, two Obie Awards, the Olivier Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Lane made his professional theatre debut in 1978 in an off-Broadway production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

During this time he also briefly appeared as one half of the comedy team of Stack and Lane, until he was cast in the 1982 Broadway revival of Noël Coward's Present Laughter directed by and starring George C. Scott.

He made his Broadway debut in a 1982 revival of Noël Coward's Present Laughter as Roland Maule (Drama Desk nomination) with George C. Scott, Kate Burton, Dana Ivey, Bette Henritze, Elizabeth Hubbard, Jim Piddock, and Christine Lahti.

His second Broadway appearance was in the 1983 musical Merlin, starring Chita Rivera and magician Doug Henning.

This was followed by Wind in the Willows as Mr. Toad, Some Americans Abroad at Lincoln Center, and the national tour of Neil Simon's Broadway Bound.

His professional association with his close friend the playwright Terrence McNally, whom he met in 1987, includes roles in The Lisbon Traviata (Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Awards, and Outer Critics Circle nomination), Bad Habits, Lips Together, Teeth Apart, Love! Valour! Compassion! (Obie, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards), Dedication or the Stuff of Dreams, which opened in 2005 (Drama Desk nomination), The Last Mile on PBS' Great Performances, and the film version of Frankie and Johnny.

This led to an extensive career onstage, where he had a long friendship and fruitful collaboration with the playwright Terrence McNally which started in 1989 with the Manhattan Theater Club production of The Lisbon Traviata.

Off-Broadway productions included Love (the musical version of Murray Schisgal's Luv), Measure for Measure directed by Joseph Papp in Central Park, for which he received the St. Clair Bayfield Award, The Common Pursuit, The Film Society, In a Pig's Valise, She Stoops to Conquer, The Merry Wives of Windsor and A Midsummer Night's Dream. He also appeared at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in The School for Scandal and John Guare's Moon Over Miami. His association with Stephen Sondheim began with the workshop reading of Assassins in 1989 where he played Samuel Byck, the would be murderer of Richard Nixon.

Lane also appeared in the television shows Miami Vice and The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.

The early 1990s began a stretch of successful Broadway shows for Lane.

In 1991, Lane appeared with George C. Scott again in a revival of Paul Osborne's On Borrowed Time at the Circle in the Square Theatre on Broadway.

His other Tony-nominated roles were in Guys and Dolls (1992), The Nance (2013), and The Front Page (2016).

In 1992, he starred in the hit revival of Guys and Dolls, playing Nathan Detroit, the character who lent him his name, opposite Peter Gallagher and Faith Prince.

For this performance, he received his first Tony nomination, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards.

In 1992, he won an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance.

In 1993, he portrayed Sid Caesar-like Max Prince in Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor, inspired by Simon's early career writing sketches for Your Show of Shows.

Lane has appeared in over 35 films, including The Lion King (1994), The Birdcage (1996), Mouse Hunt (1997), The Producers (2005), and Beau is Afraid (2023).

He received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for the Hulu mystery comedy series Only Murders in the Building in 2022.

His other Emmy-nominated roles were for Frasier, Mad About You, Modern Family, and The Good Wife.

A six-time Tony Award nominee, he has won three times, for Best Actor in a Musical for Pseudolus in Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1996) and Max Bialystock in Mel Brooks' The Producers (2001), and Best Featured Actor in a Play for Roy Cohn in Tony Kushner's Angels in America (2018).

In 1996, he starred in the hit revival of Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Amongst his 25 Broadway credits are The Man Who Came To Dinner (2000), The Odd Couple (2005), Butley (2006), Waiting For Godot (2009), The Addams Family (2010), It's Only a Play (2014), Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus (2019), and Pictures from Home (2023).

His mother Nora Veronica (Finnerty) was a housewife and secretary who suffered from bipolar disorder and died in 2000.

He has two older brothers Daniel Jr. and Robert.

Lane's parents were Catholics and all of his grandparents were Irish immigrants.

He is named after his uncle, a Jesuit priest.

Lane received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2008.

In 2010, The New York Times hailed Lane as "the greatest stage entertainer of the decade".

He has also acted in The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016), Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (2020), and The Gilded Age (2022–).