Douglas Sills

Douglas Howard Sills, born July 5, 1960, in Detroit, Michigan, is an American actor and singer whose Broadway career spanned from 1988 to 2017. He grew up in the Detroit suburb of Franklin in a Jewish household, the son of Rhoda (Nemeth) and Archie Sills. During his youth he was friends with Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, with whom he participated in amateur theatrics and filmmaking. Sills attended Cranbrook School, graduating in 1978, before studying music at the University of Michigan and subsequently training at the American Conservatory Theater in California.

Before reaching Broadway, Sills established himself as a stage character actor in the professional theaters of southern California throughout the 1990s. He made his professional stage debut in principal roles on the national tours of Into the Woods and The Secret Garden, the latter of which also featured future Broadway stars James Stacy Barbour and Audra McDonald. His path to Broadway came through an unexpected turn: having scored in the 99th percentile on the LSAT with plans to attend Stanford Law School, Sills had instructed his agent to stop sending him on auditions. Composer Frank Wildhorn and lyricist Nan Knighton sought him out as the male lead for The Scarlet Pimpernel, and his childhood affection for the story persuaded him to give acting one final chance. He was cast as Sir Percy Blakeney and opened in the production on November 9, 1997, earning a Tony Award nomination for the role. Sills went on to portray the character across multiple versions of the show, including the original Broadway production alongside Terrence Mann, Christine Andreas, and Gilles Chiason, the revised Broadway production with Rachel York and Rex Smith, and a portion of the national tour. The role also earned him a Theatre World Award in 1998.

In 2003, Sills joined the Broadway revival cast of Little Shop of Horrors, playing Orin Scrivello and several additional roles. Two years later he appeared in the Broadway production of On the Twentieth Century, and he subsequently took on the drama The Family on Broadway as well. His later Broadway credits include Living on Love in April 2015, in which he played an aging orchestra conductor in Joe DiPietro's comedy starring Renée Fleming, Jerry O'Connell, and Anna Chlumsky, and War Paint in 2017.

Beyond Broadway, Sills assumed the role of Gomez Addams in the national tour of The Addams Family beginning in September 2011, remaining with the production through its closing on December 30, 2012. In 2009 he starred opposite Kristin Chenoweth in the Encores! New York City Center concert production of Music in the Air, a Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein musical from the 1930s, which ran February 5 through February 8. Regional work included the role of Jack in Long Wharf Theatre's production of William Mastrosimone's Ride the Tiger from March 27 to April 12, 2013, and Walter Burns in La Jolla Playhouse's His Girl Friday from May 28 to June 30, 2013. In 2018 he appeared as Chief of Staff Bob Alexander in the musical Dave at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., a production with music by Tom Kitt, lyrics by Nell Benjamin, and a book by Benjamin and Thomas Meehan based on the 1993 film. As of 2022, Sills portrays Monsieur Baudin in HBO's The Gilded Age.

In his personal life, Sills has been openly gay throughout his career. He met his then-partner Todd Murray in 1994 while touring with The Secret Garden; the relationship ended in 2013.