Tony Shalhoub (placeholder)

DOB 9 October 1953
POB Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA
Graduated from USM in 1977
Lead character of tv show Monk

Shalhoub’s father’s family is from Lebanon and the American Midwest. Tony was born and raised in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His father emigrated from Lebanon to the United States as an orphan at the age of ten. He later married Shalhoub’s mother, a second-generation Lebanese-American, and founded a family company from the humble start of one grocery store in the center of Green Bay. Tony graduated with a bachelor’s degree in drama from the University of Southern Maine in Gorham, and earned a masters degree from the Yale School of Drama in 1980

Shortly thereafter, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where he spent four seasons with the American Repertory Theatre before heading to New York City, where he found work waiting tables before eventually moving onto Broadway. His role in Conversations With My Father earned him a Tony nomination, and in another Broadway production he would meet his future wife.
One of his first television roles was as the Italian cabdriver “Antonio” in the long-running sitcom Wings, which also starred Tim Daly, Steven Weber, Crystal Bernard, Oscar nominee Thomas Haden Church, and Rebecca Schull. The role was actually Shalhoub’s first audition when he arrived in Los Angeles, and he was pleasantly surprised to land the role. In the same time period, Shalhoub played the lead victim in the X-Files’ third-season episode, Soft Light.
Among his film roles include a fast-talking lawyer in The Man Who Wasn’t There, a sleazy pawn shop owner in the Men In Black films, a money-hungry attorney in A Civil Action, a widowed father in 13 Ghosts, and a has-been television star in Galaxy Quest. He most recently appeared with Alec Baldwin in the Hollywood satire The Last Shot as a gruff small-time mobster with a love for movies.