Nathan Lane

American actor, a Hollywood, television and Broadway star known for his outrageous scene-stealing comedy roles. The youngest of three boys, Nathan Lane was born Joseph Lane in 1956 in Jersey City. His mother worked as a secretary and his father was a truck driver and aspiring tenor singer who died of alcoholism when Lane was 11. Lane fell in love with acting in the 6th grade after a role in "Around the World in 80 Days" secured his first laugh from an audience. After graduating in 1974, he won a scholarship to a university in Philadelphia, but had to return to Jersey City and take a job at the county clerk's office because the scholarship didn't provide enough money to live on. He also worked as a singing messenger and stand-up comedian.

At 22, he changed his stage name to Nathan so he could join the Actors Guild inasmuch as the name Joseph Lane was already taken. He chose this moniker because his favorite character was Nathan Detroit from the Broadway classic, "Guys and Dolls" (and coincidentally, a character he would later play to acclaim in the 1992 Broadway version of the play). Lane made his film debut in 1987's "Ironweed," and he spent the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s playing secondary film roles as he struggled with alcoholism, beginning to sober up in 1993. In addition to his celebrated performance in "Guys and Dolls," for which he won a Tony nomination, he appeared in a number of plays including "The Lisbon Traviata" in which he played an opera queen, and "Love! Valour! Compassion!" 1994 in which he starred as Buzz, an HIV-positive musical aficionado. The latter role earned him Obie and Drama Desk Awards. In 1994 he also did the voice of Timon, a hyperactive meerkat in Disney's animated "The Lion King," reprising the role for the movie's 1998 sequel. In between, his profile increased when he co-starred as Robin Williams' hysterically-flamboyant, limp-wristed, cross-dressing lover in "The Birdcage," 1996, a remake of "La Cage aux Folles.