Nathan Lane
by Bill Abdul, 365Gay.com from the Web, November 27, 2004
To say that Nathan Lane is 'bigger than life' is perhaps both hackneyed and an oxymoron, but, how else to describe a performer who has conquered every known form of show business.
Lane sped off to London this fall to replace an ailing Richard Dreyfus in the British production of The Producers, the role he created on Broadway.
Come January is a rush back to New York to begin filming the Mel Brooks musical.
Then in August he's set team once again with Matthew Broderick to reprise The Odd Couple on Broadway.
"No respite for the wicked," Lane jokes.
The pudgy Lane has built a career around outrageous, divinely comedic characters.
He was born Joe Lane in Jersey City, New Jersey on February 3, 1956. He has described his Irish Catholic family background as "bad Eugene O'Neill."
When he was 21, came out to his mother. When he told her he was gay her response was, "I'd rather you were dead."
"I knew you'd understand," he remembers shooting back.
But Nora Lane made a point of seeing all of her son's shows.
Lane changed his name to Nathan when he applied for an Equity card and discovered there was already a Joe Lane in the union.
He took his stage name from Nathan Detroit, the character he later played to great acclaim in the 1992 Broadway version of Guys and Dolls.
Lane made his film debut in 1987's Ironweed, and he spent the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s playing secondary roles in films like Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), Frankie and Johnny (1991), and Addams Family Values (1993).
During this time, his stage career was thriving; in addition to his celebrated turn in Guys and Dolls (for which he won a Tony nomination, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards), he frequently collaborated with playwright Terrence McNally, who cast him in a number of his plays, including The Lisbon Traviata, in which Lane played an opera queen, and Love! Valour! Compassion!, in which he starred as Buzz, an HIV-positive musical aficionado who provides much of the play's comic relief and genuine anger.
The actor won particular acclaim for his portrayal of the latter character, taking home Obie and Drama Desk Awards, as well as other honors, for his work.
In 1994, the same year that he starred in the stage version of Love! Valour! Compassion! (his role was played in the film version by Jason Alexander), Lane gained fame of a different sort, lending his voice to Timon, a hyperactive meerkat in Disney's animated The Lion King.
He reprised the role for the extremely successful movie's 1998 sequel.
Two years after playing a meerkat, Lane finally became widely visible to screen audiences as Robin Williams' lover in The Birdcage, Mike Nichols' remake of La Cage aux
Folles. The film helped to establish Lane -- who was at the time starring on Broadway in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the
Forum -- as a comic actor worthy of big-screen exposure, and in 1997 he was given his own vehicle to display his talents, Mouse Hunt.
Unfortunately, the film was a relative disappointment, as was Encore! Encore!, a 1998 sitcom that cast the actor as a Pavorotti-like opera singer.
However, Lane continued to work steadily, appearing both on stage and in film.
In 1999, he 'officially' came out. Lane's sexuality was never really a secret.
But, then he never discussed his private life either. In a January interview with The Advocate, Lane was ready to talk.
"I don't greet people by saying, 'I'm Nathan Lane, and I'll be your homosexual.'
I just assume a lot of people know. It's never been something I kept secret."
The same year he could be seen in At First Sight and Get Bruce, a documentary about comic writer Bruce Vilanch.
The same year, he could also be heard in Stuart Little, a live action/animated adaptation of E.B White's celebrated children's book.
In 2000 he returned to Broadway to star in the hit musical comedy The Producers.
Last January, he co-starred in Win A Date With Tad Hamilton.
Of course, there have been some flops along the way, like last year's sitcom Charlie Lawrence for CBS.
But, the misses have been far fewer than the hits, and each time Lane was saddled with a setback, he threw himself into a new project.
(Emphasis added.)
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