John Scott Barrowman is a popular American actor of British descent who is best known for his role as time traveler captain Jack Harkness in the acclaimed TV series Doctor Who and the hero of the scandalous spin-off Torchwood. Barrowman is also a brilliant theater actor, singer, dancer, presenter and writer.
Childhood and young years
Actor John Barrowman was born March 11, 1967 in Glasgow, Scotland in the family of a young singer and manager at an Anglo-American tractor manufacturing enterprise. John was the youngest child in the family, but the most active and comprehensively developed. The boy loved to spend time playing games with his older brother and sister, and the actor still has close and trusting relationships with his family.
In 1976, John's father was transferred to a branch of his company in Aurora, Illinois. So a completely different life began, across the ocean. John began to study in a new school and thanks to his teachers for the first time seriously became interested in art. Throughout his studies, he periodically took part in various school productions and played in musicals. In high school, Barrowman's father helped him get a summer job with an energy company as a digger. He wanted to show the boy the severity of manual labor and the priority of education. John conscientiously worked for this company the whole summer, but this work never seemed to him especially attractive.
The beginning of an acting career
After leaving school in 1985, John Barrowman became a student in the United States International University with a degree in acting. According to the actor himself, special education gave him a real ticket to life and became a turning point in fate. The debut of the young artist took place on the stage of the London West End Theater in the musical Anything Goes and was enthusiastically received by critics. Further, the actor repeatedly appeared in various productions in the West End and Broadway. Barrowman's theater talent was appreciated when in 1998 he was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in the musical The Fix. The last theatrical work in the West End was the role in the play "Cages for Cranks."
Work in the cinema
After the enchanting success in the theater, John Barrowman decided to expand his horizons and comprehend the art of cinema. The artist began his film career in 1995 in the USA with the role of Peter Fairchild in the project “New York, Central Park”. After this role, Barrowman played in many films, such as The Titans, Producers, and others. The actor’s cinematic career was slowly but surely going uphill. In 2005, John appeared in the episode "Empty Child", after which he immediately fell in love with the viewer.
Role in the series Doctor Who
In 2004, John received the central role of captain, and part-time traveler Jack Hartness in the cult television series Doctor Who. For John Barrowman, this was one of the most successful work. As planned by the scriptwriters, Jack Hartness became the first pansexual companion of the Doctor, which caused considerable resonance in society. Thanks to this fact, Barrowman has become a real symbol of open homosexuality and freedom of choice of a partner, regardless of gender characteristics.
The character’s popularity grew everywhere, and this was the first impetus for creating a full-fledged Torchwood spin-off, which brought the actor even more popularity. John has been involved in Doctor Who and Torchwood projects for 6 years and has been repeatedly awarded prizes for his roles in these series.
Further career of the actor
In addition to the above series and films, John Barrowman took part in such well-known projects as "Scandal", "Maria", as well as in the series "Desperate Housewives", where he played the role of Patrick Logan. Each year, the artist has more and more roles. He successfully combines a theatrical and cinematic career and manages to be in demand literally everywhere.
Recently, the actor could be seen in the sensational film “Goal Number One”, as well as in the historical film “Gilded Lilies”. In addition to a career in cinema, Barrowman is very actively involved in various television projects and entertainment programs. He equally infectiously follows his dream in Any Dream Will Do and masterfully demonstrates acrobatic pirouettes in Ice Dancing.
Personal life
John Barrowman is an open-minded gay, which greatly affected the Torchwood project, where the hero was an open-minded pansexual. Moreover, the actor never hid this fact from the public and even entered into a partnership in 2006 with his longtime lover, the architect Scott Gill.
Scott Gill and John Barrowman met back in 1993 at a theater festival. Gill approached the actor to express his admiration for the brilliant work in the production of Rope, in which Barrowman then took part.
The couple lives a fairly secluded life in their homes in Cardiff and London. A small and very cozy civil partnership ceremony was held in Cardiff. There were parents and other relatives of Scott and John, as well as colleagues on the TV series “Torchwood” and the famous producer Russell Davis. In those years, the actor has repeatedly said that his choice is a civil partnership, since he does not see the point in official marriage. However, on July 2, 2013, Scott Gill and John Barrowman nevertheless formalized the relationship officially. A modest ceremony was held with the family in the state of California, USA.
Creating Memoirs
In 2008, the actor released a book of his memoirs with the talking title Anything Goes, and already in 2009 the second book of John I am what I I am was released. In the second book, Barrowman spoke about his work in film and television, about the ups and downs that he had to endure on the path to fame.