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Alan Cumming was born on January 27, 1965 in Aberfeldy, Scotland. His family lived nearby in Dunkeld, where his father was a forester for Atholl Estate. -
Cumming participated in plays at his high school; Carnoustie High School. Soon after that Alan began working with the Carnoustie Theatre Club and Carnoustie Musical Society. -
He left Carnoustie High School when he was 16 and took a staff job at a magazine. -
After graduating High School, Alan worked extensively in Scottish theater and television. -
Alan began to work on soap operas known as "Take the High Road" -
In September 1982, he entered a three-year course at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama -
Alan Cumming was able to make his first appearance on tv. -
Alan Cumming graduated in 1985 with a B.A. (Dramatic Studies) and awards for verse speaking and direction. -
Graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama with a B.A. and also won the Gordon Bottomley Award for direction, and an award for the speaking of Scots verse in 1985.
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Alan Cumming earned his first Olivier award nomination for Most Promising Newcomer of 1988. -
Alan's film career began with Ian Sellar's Prague (1992) -
In 1993 he played Hamlet for the English Touring Theare to great critical acclaim ranked first and second--with his performance in "CabaretHe received a 1994 Olivier award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical for "Cabaret", and for Hamlet he received the 1994 TMA Best Actor award and a Shakespeare Globe award nomination. -
In 1994, he made his first Hollywood film, Circle of Friends (1995), and his performance as the oleaginous Sean Walsh -
Won Broadway's 1998 Tony Award as Best Actor (Musical) for a revival of "Cabaret."
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Alan played the role of Fegan Floop being the villain in the movie "Spy Kids" in 2000. -
Alan received the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics' Circle, Theatre World, FANY, New York Press and New York Public Advocate's awards for his performance. -
Alan wrote, directed, produced and acted in The Anniversary Party (2001) with Jennifer Jason Leigh, which premiered at the Cannes Film festival in 2002 and went on to win a National Board of Review award and two Independent Spirit award nominations.
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Alan adapted and played the lead in 2002 for the play "Elle" by Jean Genet -
Alan found the time to write a novel, "Tommy's Tale", in 2002.
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Alan also played in the movie X2: X-Men United in (2003). Speaks fluent German. This came in handy when Cumming was cast in X2 as Nightcrawler, a mutant born and raised in Munich, Germany.
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More recently he has produced the documentary Show People (2004) and the films Sweet Land (2005)
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In 2006, he returned to Broadway as Macheath in "The Threepenny Opera".
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Cumming became a U.S. Citizen in 2008.
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In 2014, Cumming published the tell-all memoir "Not My Father's Son", which documents the physical and emotional abuse inflicted on him by his father, and their years of estrangement.
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Cumming posted a picture on his Instagram with a caption telling us all something he recently did: returned his OBE. He noted he received the award not only for his job as an actor, but also for "activism for equal rights for the gay and lesbian community, USA."