Tony Shalhoub

Actor

A character actor in feature films, Tony Shalhoub is best known as the Emmy-winning star of the cable television series Monk. A native of Green Bay Wisconsin, Shalhoub went to college in Maine and earned a graduate degree from the Yale School of Drama (1980). After several years on the stage in Cambridge, Massachusetts and New York City, Shalhoub began working in television and movies in the late 1980s. A stand-out even in small parts, he was an audience favorite as Antonio on the TV comedy series Wings (1991-97) and received rave reviews for his performance in the movie Big Night (1996, with Ian Holm). After working steadily in the movies, including Men in Black (1997, starring Will Smith), Galaxy Quest (1999, with Sigourney Weaver) and the Coen brothers film The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Shalhoub returned to TV as an obsessive-compulsive detective in the comic mystery series Monk in 2002. He made his directorial debut with the 2002 movie Made-Up, in which he co-stars with his wife, Brooke Adams, and her sister, Lynne Adams (who wrote the screenplay).

Extra credit: Of Lebanese-American descent, Shalhoub helped launch the Arab-American Filmmaker Award, started in 2005.