10 reasons we love Pride Awards host Alan Cumming
By Nick Bond
The incomparable Alan Cumming is jetting into London this week to host the inaugural Attitude Pride Awards this Friday night, presented in partnership with Delta Air Lines, and we couldn’t think of a better host to help us pay tribute to some everyday LGBT heroes.
From comedy to drama, from serious stage turns to wonderfully silly Hollywood comedies, Cumming’s been a magnetic performer throughout his career – here’s a few reasons we love the 50-year-old Scot:
His breakout US role as Sandy Frink in comedy classic Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion
Poor old Sandy Frink was a high school loser – shunned by his dream girl Michele, afflicted with an almost permanent erection that only the biggest notebook could hide. But he reemerged at film’s end triumphant, a billionaire after inventing a special kind of rubber (like, for condoms?). Just look at he, Romy and Michele’s magical dance routine to Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time:
He made for a fantastically crazy, but still oddly sexy Macbeth
His we-still-can’t-believe-this-happened perfume
What to do when you’ve been blessed with a double entendre of a surname? Why, release a perfume of the same name, of course. That’s right: Alan Cumming released a fragrance named ‘Cumming’. The accompanying advertising campaign left viewers in no doubt that Alan’s tongue was firmly planted in cheek:
Because he played the creepy villain in the Spy Kids franchise
Because he stands alongside Joel Grey as the DEFINITIVE EMCEE from Cabaret, playing the role in 1993, 1998 and 2014
No question.
It’s also the role that links him inextricably to Liza Minnelli, with whom he has performed many cabaret shows, including this one on the gay mecca, Fire Island
Because he’s also knocked out a New York Times bestseller, as you do
Because he’s devilishly handsome as Eli Gold in hit TV show The Good Wife
BECAUSE HE WAS IN SPICEWORLD: THE MOVIE
‘Nuff said. He’s since said that it’s the favourite experience he’s ever had working on a film!
He’s also a first class host, as evidenced when he led proceedings at this year’s Tony Awards, with the help of the lovely little Kristin Chenoweth:
See you Friday, Alan!