What do Lord Farquaad and the Wicoff House Museum have in common? They both have connections to American actor John Lithgow!

John Arthur Lithgow was born in 1945 in Rochester, New York, but spent much of his early life moving around due to his father’s job. His father became the director for the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey and Lithgow graduated from Princeton High School. He went on to study history and English literature at Harvard, followed by a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

As a young married man and actor, John Lithgow and his parents moved into the Wicoff House from August 1972 until June 1973. After the death of Lavinia Applegate Wicoff in 1958, the Wicoff House was rented out by her sons to a series of tenants for about 20 years, which included the Lithgows.

The gifted John Lithgow has had an array of different roles in theater, on television, and in movies. Just a handful of his roles include starring on TV shows 3^rd Rock from the Sun, Dexter, The Crown, The Old Man, and movies The World According to Garp, All That Jazz, Footloose, The Manhattan Project, Cliffhanger, Shrek, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Interstellar, Late Night, Bombshell, Killers of the Flower Moon, Conclave, and many, many more.

Here at the Wicoff House Museum, we have multiple costume pieces that Lithgow wore while filming the movie Cliffhanger (1993) with Sylvester Stallone. Lithgow played the character of Eric Qualen, an evil mastermind stranded in the mountains. Cliffhanger was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing, and Best Visual Effects.

Overall, Lithgow has received two Tony Awards, six Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, an American Comedy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, four Drama Desk Awards, and he has been nominated for two Academy Awards and four Grammy Awards. He has received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Shot from “Cliffhanger” of Lithgow (right) wearing the ski suit that we have in our textiles collection.