Arthur Lithgow

Arthur Washington Lithgow III (September 9, 1915 – March 24, 2004) was an American actor and director. He helped pioneer the regional theater movement in the United States and founded two Shakespeare festivals. Early life Lithgow was born in Puerto Plata, the Dominican Republic, the son of Ina Berenice (née Robinson), an American nurse, and Arthur Washington Lithgow II, an American-Dominican entrepreneur born to Ellen Prentiss Peirce, American, and Washington G. Lithgow, a Dominican of American descent, who was a vice consul and vice commercial agent in the country. He first appeared onstage in December 1920 at age 5 as a cherub in a Christmas pageant at the Unitarian Church in Melrose, Massachusetts. Career He appeared in student productions at Antioch College, where he founded the Antioch Summer Theater in 1935 and where he received his BA in 1938. He made his New York City debut in November 1938, as a soldier in Jacques Deval's anti-Nazi drama, Lorelei.