Victor Garber

Victor Garber

Active - 1953 - 2023  |   Born - Mar 16, 1949 in London, Ontario, Canada  |   Genres - Drama, Action, Adventure

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Biography by AllMovie

Broadway actor Victor Garber was born on March 16th, 1940 in London, Ontario, Canada. Through years of working on-stage, he has earned several Tony and Drama Desk nominations. He earned his first Obie award for his performance in Wenceslas Square at the 1988 New York Shakespeare Festival. Some of his other stage credits include Macbeth, Sweeney Todd, Damn Yankees, and Yasmina Reza's Art. After playing Jesus on-stage in Toronto, Garber reprised his role in David Greene's 1973 film musical Godspell. He joined Greene again to play the lead in Liberace: Behind the Music (1988).

Staying busy with theater, Garber occasionally acts in supporting roles on the big screen. He appeared in two of Nora Ephron's feature comedies: Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and Mixed Nuts (1994). He also appeared in the tense drama Exotica in 1994, directed by fellow Canadian Atom Egoyan. Throughout the '90s and beyond, he appeared in countless TV movies, from Woman on the Run: The Lawrencia Bembenek Story (1993) to Torso: The Evelyn Dick Story (2002). Some of his mainstream feature appearances include small parts in The First Wives Club, Titanic, and Legally Blonde. Meanwhile, he regularly appeared in a Canadian television mystery series, Criminal Instincts, based on the novels by Gail Bowen, starting with the first installment Love and Murder in 2000. He played Inspector Phillip Menard to head police detective Joanne Kilborne (Wendy Crewson). He also had a very comfortable home in Disney movies during this time, as he played the dad in Tuck Everlasting, the king in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, and Daddy Warbucks in Rob Marshall's 1999 TV feature Annie.

In 2001, Garber was cast as another dad in the dramatic spy series Alias. He played Jack Bristow, the CIA agent dad of Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner). He earned an Emmy nomination for his work on the show. Characters for 2003 included a mayor in the ABC musical The Music Man and a detective in the independent drama Home Room. The actor continued his work in Alias until 2005, and enjoyed further success on the television series' Justice and Eli Stone. In 2008, the actor took on the role of Mayor Moscone for the Academy Award-winning Milk, and lent his voice to Kung Fu Panda 2 in 2011.

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Factsheet

  • Began acting at age 10 in children's productions at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario.
  • Mother hosted a TV show in London, Ontario, called At Home with Hope Garber.
  • Dropped out of high school at 16 and moved to Toronto to pursue a performing career.
  • In the late 1960s, formed a band called the Sugar Shoppe, with Peter Mann, Lee Harris and pianist Laurie Hood; made appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show.
  • First acting break came in a 1972 Toronto stage production of Godspell, which also starred Martin Short, Gilda Radner, Eugene Levy and Paul Shaffer.
  • Officiated the 2005 wedding of friend and Alias costar Jennifer Garner to Ben Affleck.
  • His photo was mistakenly used by the Radio and Television of Ireland (RTÉ) reporting a 2010 opinion poll of right-leaning Irish politician Enda Kenny.