Who

The star of Broadway's Cabaret and the film X2: X-Men United, Scotsman Alan Cumming is also a campy gay icon.

Backstory

The son of an Scottish forester, Cumming was raised in a remote part of the country and attended Catholic school before escaping to Glasgow, where he joined the staff of a pop music magazine called Tops. He didn't stay there for long: Determined to pursue acting, he landed a spot at the Royal Scottish Academy of Dramatic Art, and appeared on stage professionally for the first time as Malcolm in Macbeth. In the early 1990s, he attracted attention in Britain when he wrote and starred in The High Life, a BBC sitcom set on a Scottish airline; he later moved to London and appeared in several production at Sam Mendes's Donmar theater, making the leap to the big screen in 1995 when he appeared opposite Minnie Driver in Circle of Friends.

He's since used his impish charm to score major roles on stage and screen, playing the Emcee in the Broadway revival of Cabaret, Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United, and villain Boris Grishenko in Goldeneye. In 2001, he teamed up with Jennifer Jason Leigh to write, direct, and star in 2001's The Anniversary Party. In 2002 he also published a novel, Tommy's Tale.

On the side

You can buy the sweet smell of Cumming at Sephora: He has his own line of beauty products, including a fragrance called Cumming, a body cleanser called Cumming Clean, and Cumming In A Bar soap. So what does Alan Cumming smell like? A "manly, tasty blend of black pepper and bergamot with just a hint of Scotch pine, whiskey and—could it be?—rubber," wrote the Times.

Personal

Although Cumming was married to actress Hilary Lyon for eight years, they split in 1993 and he's identified as a gay man ever since. In 2007, he married his longtime boyfriend, illustrator Grant Shaffer, in a civil ceremony in London. The couple splits their time between London and East 10th Street in New York, usually with beloved dog Honey in tow.