Born: 11th March 1967 (as John Scot Barrowman)
Episodes Broadcast: 2005-2011

John Barrowman was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and was interested in music and pantomime from a young age. When he was nine, his father's work with manufacturer Caterpillar took the family to Illinois, where they settled in Joliet; Barrowman would cultivate natural Scottish and American accents. As a teenager, he began appearing in public speaking competitions, high school musicals and community theatre. In 1985, Barrowman enrolled at the University of Iowa and then DePaul University, intending to study music and drama. Finding the experience did not meet his expectations, he instead spent two years working at the Opryland theme park in Nashville, Tennessee, was an extra in the 1987 movie The Untouchables, and appeared in a television commercial for Baskin-Robbins ice cream.

Barrowman made another attempt at undergraduate studies in 1988, when he enrolled in the United States International University. An exchange program took him back to the United Kingdom in 1989, during which he successfully auditioned for a West End production of Anything Goes. A succession of West End, Broadway and touring musicals followed, while Barrowman also became a presenter for the children's programmes Live & Kicking and The Movie Game. In 1995, he joined the cast of the short-lived American melodrama Central Park West; similar work followed in 2000, with Titans. A gay man, Barrowman auditioned for the lead role of Will in the long-running sitcom Will And Grace, but was bafflingly deemed too straight for the role. In 1997, he released Aspects Of Lloyd Webber, the first of several albums. Barrowman also made small movie appearances, in the 2004 Cole Porter biography De-Lovely starring Kevin Kline, and in the infamous Springtime For Hitler sequence for the following year's remake of The Producers.

His participation in Dancing On Ice made Barrowman a fixture on reality programming

A more significant development for Barrowman during 2005 was his appearance in that year's revival of Doctor Who. Playing Captain Jack Harkness in Christopher Eccleston's final five episodes as the Ninth Doctor, Barrowman blazed new territory as the explicitly bisexual -- even pansexual -- former Time Agent. The character was then spun off into the more adult-oriented Torchwood, which ran for four seasons between 2006 and 2011. Barrowman returned to Doctor Who for several appearances opposite David Tennant's Tenth Doctor, and could also be seen in episodes of Hotel Babylon and My Family. His participation in the 2006 season of Dancing On Ice also made Barrowman a fixture as a judge or presenter on reality programming for several years thereafter. He wrote two memoirs with his sister, Carole E Barrowman, both of which were published by Michael O'Mara. Anything Goes was issued in 2008, followed by I Am What I Am in 2009.

Barrowman returned to American television in 2010 with a stint on Desperate Housewives. He then won a new legion of genre fans when he started playing the villainous Malcolm Merlyn on Arrow and its family of super-hero programmes derived from the annals of DC Comics. Other television during the decade included Hustle and Reign, while 2012's critically-acclaimed Zero Dark Thirty saw a notable film appearance. The same year, Barrowman and his sister co-wrote Hollow Earth, the first of several original fantasy novels. In 2013, he married architect Scott Gill; the pair had previously formed a civil partnership in 2006.

Although Torchwood ended in 2011, Captain Jack remained near and dear to Barrowman, who continued to campaign for both the programme's revival, and his character's return to Doctor Who. He and his sister wrote the Torchwood novel Exodus Code in 2012, having previously collaborated on Captain Jack And The Selkie, a 2009 comic for Torchwood Magazine. They subsequently revisited several of the characters from Exodus Code in comic books from Titan, starting in 2016. In 2013, Barrowman lampooned himself in the Doctor Who fiftieth-anniversary spoof The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot. He then reprised the role of Captain Jack for a series of Torchwood audio plays from Big Finish Productions, the first of which was The Conspiracy in 2015.

During the Twenties, Barrowman appeared in an episode of Holby City. He then surprised viewers with an unannounced return to Doctor Who. Having met the Doctor's companions in 2020's Fugitive Of The Judoon, Captain Jack liberated the Thirteenth Doctor herself, as played by Jodie Whittaker, in 2021's Revolution Of The Daleks. A few months later, however, Barrowman was forced to apologise for his misbehaviour on the set of Doctor Who and elsewhere more than a decade earlier, when his habit of exposing himself for laughs came under renewed scrutiny. As a result, new footage of Barrowman as Captain Jack was excised from the Doctor Who: Time Fracture interactive show.