Arab Americans

Tony Shalhoub

Anthony Marcus “Tony” Shalhoub (shǝ-loob; born October 9, 1953) is an American actor. His television work includes the roles of Antonio Scarpacci in Wings and detective Adrian Monk in the TV series Monk, for which he has won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy, two Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series and three Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

He has also had a successful career as a character actor, with roles in films such as Spy Kids, Men in Black, Men in Black II,Thirteen Ghosts, Galaxy Quest, 1408, Barton Fink, Big Night, The Siege, Cars, Cars 2, The Man Who Wasn’t There, andTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Early life

Shalhoub is the second youngest of ten children, and was born and raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin.^[1][2] His father, Joe, was from Lebanon and immigrated to the United States as an orphan at the age of 10. Joe married Shalhoub’s mother, Helen (née Seroogy),^[3] a second-generation Lebanese-American, and founded a family grocery chain, starting with a store in downtown Green Bay.

Shalhoub was introduced to acting by an older sister who put his name forward to be an extra in a high school production ofThe King and I.^[1] Despite finding himself standing on the wrong side of the curtain during the final dress rehearsal, he became enamored of the theater. Shalhoub attended Green Bay East High School. In his senior year he suffered a setback, breaking his leg in a fall off the stage into the pit during a rehearsal. Recovering quickly, he was able to perform in the school’s final play of the year. After a short time at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, he earned a bachelor’s degree in drama from the University of Southern Maine. He later went on to earn a master’s from the Yale School of Drama in 1980.^[1][4]

Career

Stage

Shortly thereafter, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he spent four seasons with the American Repertory Theater before heading to New York City, where he found work waiting tables while honing his craft and auditioning. He made his Broadway debut in the 1985 Rita Moreno/Sally Struthers production of The Odd Coupleand was nominated for a 1992 Tony Award for his featured role in Conversations with My Father. Shalhoub met his wife, actress Brooke Adams, when they co-starred on Broadway in The Heidi Chronicles. His off-Broadway credits include Waiting for Godot, For Dear Life, Rameau’s Nephew, Zero Positive, and two productions of Shakespeare in the Park: Henry IV, Part 1 and Richard II.

Shalhoub returned in December 2006 to the Second Stage Theatre in New York, off-Broadway, opposite Patricia Heaton for a run of The Scene by Theresa Rebeck.^[5] In 2010, he went to Broadway to act as Saunders in a revival version of Lend Me a Tenor in New York at the Music Box Theatre.^[6] He was nominated for a 2013 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Golden Boy at the Belasco Theatre.^[7] He was nominated for a 2014 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for Lincoln Center Theater’s production of Act One at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre.^[8]

Screen roles

One of Shalhoub’s first television roles was in 1991 as the Italian cabdriver Antonio Scarpacci in the sitcom Wings. Shalhoub was pleasantly surprised to land the role after having a guest appearance in the second season. Shalhoub affected an Italian accent for the role. In the same time period, Shalhoub played physicist Dr. Chester Ray Banton in The X-Files second-season episode “Soft Light”.

Shalhoub’s film roles following his Wings breakout included an excitable producer consulted by John Turturro’s character in Barton Fink and a fast-talking lawyer in The Man Who Wasn’t There (both directed by the Coen brothers), a linguistically unidentified cabby in Quick Change, a Cuban-American businessman in Primary Colors,sleazy alien pawn shop owner Jack Jeebs in the Men in Black films, a sympathetic attorney working for John Travolta’s lawyer in A Civil Action, a widowed father in Thir13en Ghosts, a cameo role in the film Gattaca, and a has-been television star in Galaxy Quest.

He had a co-starring role in the film Big Night, where he plays an Italian-speaking chef complete with accent. In 1995 he had a role in the hit NBC sitcom Frasier in the episode “The Focus Group” as an Arab newsstand owner named Manu Habbib. He did voice acting for the 1997 computer game Fallout.

Shalhoub demonstrated his dramatic range in the 1998 big-budget thriller The Siege, where he co-starred alongside Denzel Washington, Annette Bening, and Bruce Willis. His character, FBI Special Agent Frank Haddad, was of Middle Eastern descent and suffered discrimination after terrorist attacks in New York City.^[9] He returned to series television in 1999, this time in a lead role on Stark Raving Mad, opposite Neil Patrick Harris. However, the show failed to attract an audience and NBC canceled the series in 2000.^[10]

Monk

After a two-year absence from the small screen, Shalhoub starred in another TV series, Monk, in which he portrayed Adrian Monk, a brilliant Sherlock Holmes-type detective with many compulsions and phobias, for USA Network. Shalhoub was nominated for an Emmy Award^[11] for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in eight consecutive years from 2003 to 2010, winning in 2003, 2005, and 2006. He also took the Golden Globe award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy, in 2003.^[12]

During Monk

In addition to his acting work, Shalhoub, along with the Network of Arab-American Professionals and Zoom-in-Focus productions, established The Arab-American Filmmaker Award Competition in 2005. Arab-American filmmakers submitted screenplays, with the chosen winner flown to Hollywood to have their screenplay produced. Two runners-up were also invited to participate in the production.

He appeared with Matthew Broderick and Alec Baldwin in the 2004 Hollywood satire The Last Shot as a gruff small-time mobster with a love for movies. In 2006, he appeared in Danny Leiner’s drama “The Great New Wonderful” as a psychologist in post-9/11 New York City. The following year, 2007, he appeared in the horror film 1408 as well as on stage off-Broadway as Charlie in The Scene.

Voice work

He received a 2008 Grammy nomination in the category “Best Spoken Word Album for Children” for his narration of The Cricket in Times Square.^[13] He provided the voice of Luigi, a 1959 Fiat 500 who runs a tire shop, in the 2006 Disney/Pixar film Cars and its 2011 sequel, Cars 2. Shalhoub voiced Splinter in the 2014 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.^[14]

Personal life

Shalhoub married actress Brooke Adams in 1992. The two have worked together in several films, one episode of Wings, and Adams has appeared credited as a “Special Guest Star” in five episodes of Monk. Adams first appears in “Mr. Monk and the Airplane” as Leigh Harrison, a flight attendant driven to drinking by Monk’s eccentricities. Harrison is later interviewed by James Novak (Eric McCormack) in the episode “Mr. Monk’s 100th Case”, where she reveals also developing a fear of flying. In “Mr. Monk and the Kid,” Adams plays Abigail Carlyle, the mother of a kidnapped violinist. In “Mr. Monk Visits a Farm,” Adams plays Marge Butterfield, a county sheriff who shows a keen interest in Monk, even roping him into square dancing with her while he tries to solve the murder of Randy Disher’s uncle. In “Mr. Monk and the Badge,” she plays Edith Capriani, a crazy cat lady that Monk quickly becomes fed up with.

Shalhoub and Adams appeared on Broadway together in the 2010 revival of Lend Me a Tenor. At the time of their wedding, Adams had an adopted daughter, Josie Lynn (born 1989), whom Shalhoub adopted. In 1994, they adopted another daughter, Sophie (born 1993). The family resides in Los Angeles and Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Shalhoub is the cousin of Chicago radio personality Jonathon Brandmeier. He is also the brother-in-law of former Guiding Light actress Lynne Adams.

Tony’s brother Michael is also an actor and, like Brooke Adams, has also made guest appearances on Monk. He first appears in “Mr. Monk and the Missing Granny,” as a member of a disbanded radical group that Monk and Captain Stottlemeyer interrogate on suspicion of involvement in the kidnapping of law student Julie Parlo’s grandmother. In “Mr. Monk Bumps His Head,” he plays a Wyoming beekeeper who is mildly annoyed when fertilizer packing plant operator Roger Zisk crashes his car into his farm. Michael lastly appears in “Mr. Monk is the Best Man” as the unnamed minister at Stottlemeyer and T.K. Jensen’s wedding.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

Producer

Director