Nathan Lane

Born: 3 February 1956
Where: Jersey City, New Jersey, USA

The living Broadway legend is best known for taking his Tony and Olivier Award-winning performance in The Producers onto the big screen.

He emerged from a troubled childhood - his mother was manic depressive and his truck driver father died of alcoholism when he was 11 - to attend college.

When given the choice of continuing his education or following an acting career, he took his chances on the New York stage.

After a long struggle, his career began on Broadway, most notably in the first production of Terrence McNally's Lips Together, Teeth Apart.

He changed his name to Nathan after the character Nathan Detroit from the musical Guys and Dolls, in a revival of which he appeared with Peter Gallagher and Faith Prince.

After early appearances in Ironweed and Frankie & Johnny (as Michelle Pfeiffer's gay neighbouor), his first major film role was supplying the voice of Timon in Disney's The Lion King.

After spending much of the 1990s working on movies, including The Birdcage and the comedy Mousehunt, he returned to the stage in Mel Brooks'hit musical The Producers.

Openly gay, he was criticized by some gay activists for taking the role of a promiscuous heterosexual in the short-lived TV series Encore! Encore!.

(he dismissed these detractors as "old queens".)

He had a featured role as a vision specialist in At First Sight, opposite Val Kilmer, and was cast as the voice of Snowbell, the fluffy white Persian cat in Stuart Little.

In 2002, he was the "mysterious disco man" in Austin Powers in Goldmember and played Vincent Crummles in Nicholas Nickleby.

Roles followed in Win A Date With Tad Hamilton and he also revised the book for and starred in Stephen Sondheim's musical adaptation of Aristophanes' The Frogs in 2004.

The same year he assumed the lead role of Max Bialystock in the London stage production of The Producers after Richard Dreyfuss had to bow out.

The play was a commercial success (for his ten-week run Lane was paid £400,000) and also landed Lane an Olivier Award for best actor in a musical.

In 2005, Lane took the role of Bialystock onto the big screen with the film version of the The Producers with Matthew Broderick and Uma Thurman.