John Glover

A longtime character actor with a reputation for taking on villainous roles with gleeful abandon and a subtle touch of humor, John Glover was once dubbed "the supreme rotter of the '80s" by the late film critic Pauline Kael, thanks to unforgettable performances in such films as 52 Pick-Up, Masquerade, and Scrooged. Always injecting his baddies with an element of quirk and personality, Glover later gravitated away from a life of cinematic crime to success with more sympathetic roles in Love! Valour! Compassion! and Mid-Century. A Salisbury, MD, native who pursued his higher education at Towson State Teacher's College, Glover began an off-Broadway career in the late '60s, which led to small parts in the mid-'70s in such films as Shamus (1973) and Annie Hall (1977). With occasional small-screen roles balancing out his features, Glover began carving out a villainous niche for himself during the '80s in such movies as The Evil That Men Do and 52 Pick-Up. Though Glover's big-screen work served as his bread and butter, more sympathetic television appearances — as a valiant AIDS patient in An Early Frost (1985) and a dedicated doctor in L.A. Law — earned the actor a pair of Emmy nominations.

As his career progressed, Glover became an increasingly prominent figure on TV thanks to parts in Miami Vice, Murder, She Wrote, and Frasier, and his "villains" became ever more quirky in such high-profile features as Gremlins 2: The New Batch and Robocop 2. Glover's roles were also becoming increasingly diverse. Offering a side of himself rarely seen by audiences, he played artist Leonardo DaVinci in the 1991 made-for-TV feature A Season of Giants, and then portrayed another villain, this time the biggest of them all — the Devil himself — in the 1998 series Brimstone. Beginning in 1992, Glover did voice work for the popular superhero cartoon Batman: The Animated Series and, later, Batman: Gotham Nights; he also had onscreen roles in the live-action feature Batman & Robin and the WB series Smallville. Glover often returns to his alma matter (now called Towson University) to work with the drama students at the school's Fine Arts College. He is nominated for a 2009 Tony Award® for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play for his role in Waiting for Godot.

by Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide