John Glover

Happy Birthday to John Glover! He was born in Kingston, New York and raised in Salisbury, Maryland, the son of Cade (née Mullins) and John Soursby Glover, a television salesman. Glover attended Wicomico High School and acted at Towson University. Glover began his career at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, and later studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse under Milton Katselas. He made his film debut in Shamus (1973) starring Burt Reynolds and Dyan Cannon. He followed that with roles in two Oscar winning classics from 1977, Annie Hall and Julia. He was then in Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978) with Farrah Fawcett and Jeff Bridges, Jonathan Demme's The Last Embrace (1979), Mountain Men (1980) with Charlton Heston, the Oscar winning Melvin and Howard (1980), The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981) with Lily Tomlin and Charles Grodin, The Evil That Men Do (1984) with Charles Bronson, a small but pivotal role as a U.S. diplomat in White Nights (1985), he gave an Oscar worthy performance in 52 Pick-Up (1986) opposite Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret and Kelly Preston, Masquerade (1988) with Rob Lowe, he played Bryce Cummings, the ultimate corporate sleazebag, in Richard Donner's Christmas classic Scrooged (1988) starring Bill Murray, he played Brother Leon in the cult classic The Chocolate War (1988). his character in Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) was originally written as a corrupt, deeply unpleasant businessman. Glover, who was getting sick of being cast as villains, instead chose to portray him as an immensely likable and friendly, if eccentric and immature, character, he was in RoboCop 2 (1990), Ed and His Dead Mother (1993) with Steve Buscemi, John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness (1994) with Sam Neill, Batman & Robin (1997) with George Clooney, Payback (1998) with Mel Gibson, The Civilization of Maxwell Bright (2005) with Jennifer Tilly and as the main villain in Shazam! (2019) with Zachary Levi.

He is seen rehearsing the role of John Kreese in behind-the-scenes pre-production footage from The Karate Kid (1984), indicating he may have been considered for that role He won Broadway's 1995 Tony Award as Best Actor (Featured Role - Play) for the dual roles of John Jeckyll and James Jeckyll in Terence McNally's Love! Valour! Compassion!, parts he recreated in the film version of the same title, Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997). On Television he appeared in the Miami Vice episode "Lend Me an Ear" as Steve Duddy. He also appeared in two episodes of Murder, She Wrote, the first one being "One White Rose for Death" in which he played East German Franz Mueller. Mueller wishes to defect to the United States, but his sister is a celebrated concert violinist. They both become caught up in a case of murder at the British Embassy. The other episode was "When Thieves Fall Out," where he played Andrew Durbin, a man wrongly accused of stealing bonds. He appeared in the TV movie An Early Frost in 1985, the first TV film to confront the issue of AIDS, and received an Emmy nomination for his performance as a gay AIDS patient. In 1986, he appeared in the TV film Apology with Lesley Ann Warren. He was the Riddler in Batman: The Animated Series, Verad in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Invasive Procedures", the Devil in the series Brimstone, and a recurring role in The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd as Cousin Jerry, from Bal'mer, a relative whom no one actually seemed to know. For his role as an assassin in NBC's Grass Roots (1992) he spent four hours daily in the make-up chair. He appeared in the role of Max Brodsky, an inmate in concentration camps and later a fighter for Israel's independence, in Ian Sharp's 1989 TV miniseries Twist of Fate (also known as Pursuit). That same year, he played a hard driving, low on morals District Sales Manager in HBO's Traveling Man. He also received a 1994 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his appearance in Frasier. On TV, Glover is perhaps best known for the role as Lionel Luthor on Smallville from 2001 to 2008 where he first appeared as a guest actor in the show's first season and then appeared as a full cast member from seasons two to seven. He later returned in 2010 and 2011 for the tenth and final season as a parallel universe version of the character.

He had a recurring role in Law & Order: Criminal Intent as Declan Gage, an old friend and mentor to Detective Robert Goren. On ABC's Brothers & Sisters he played Henry (the boyfriend of Saul Holden) in 2009. In Heroes he had a brief appearance as Samson Gray, the father of Sylar. In 2013, Glover starred in the horror anthology Sanitarium. He also guest-starred in an episode of Agent Carter, Glover has done various voice-over work for several projects related to Tron: Legacy: the villainous character Abraxas in Tron: Evolution, and Dyson in Tron: Uprising. In 2014, he guest-starred on The Blacklist in the episode titled "Berlin". He played Jared Andrews on The Good Wife and reprised the role on The Good Fight. He was in the Netflix update of Tales of the City (2019) with Olympia Dukakis and played a theater producer in the horror series Evil (2019). in 2021 he joined the cast of Fear the Walking Dead and was in an episode of Lucifer. He had made notable appearances on stage, he appeared as "man in the chair/narrator" in The Drowsy Chaperone on Broadway during summer 2007. He played the role of Lucky in a Broadway production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, for which he earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play. In 2014, he appeared as Leonato in the Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing. He visits his alma mater Towson University in Maryland regularly to work with drama students in the Fine Arts College. Glover married sculptor Adam Kurtzman in 2016. They began dating in 1993. During John Glover's interview on Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum (hosted by the actor who played Glover's character's son on the TV show Smallville), Glover is gay. He married sculptor Adam Kurtzman in 2016 They began dating in 1993.Glover revealed that during the 1970s he had a one-night-stand in London with Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury. Glover is involved with the Alzheimer's Association. His father had Alzheimer's.