Timothy Hutton

Timothy Hutton is an American actor and film director born on August 16, 1960, in Malibu, California. He holds the distinction of being the youngest recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, winning the honor at age 20 for his role as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People (1980).

Hutton was raised primarily by his mother, Maryline Adams, a teacher, following his parents' divorce when he was three years old. His father was actor Jim Hutton. After the separation, his mother relocated with Hutton and his older sister, Heidi, first to Boston and then to Harwinton, Connecticut, where she taught school. The family returned to California when Hutton was twelve. At fifteen, in 1976, he moved to Los Angeles to live with his father and attended Fairfax High School, where a role as Nathan Detroit in a school production of Guys and Dolls led him to pursue acting professionally. His father died of liver cancer on June 2, 1979, two days after his 45th birthday, and Hutton acknowledged him in his Academy Award acceptance speech two years later.

His professional career began with television work, including the 1979 ABC film Friendly Fire and a role as the son of Donna Reed in the NBC film The Best Place to Be. He also appeared in two CBS television films in 1980, Young Love, First Love with Valerie Bertinelli and Father Figure with Hal Linden. His feature film debut in Ordinary People earned him both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, as well as the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year in a Motion Picture – Male. His next feature, Taps (1981), co-starring George C. Scott, Sean Penn, and Tom Cruise, was well received, and The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), which again paired him with Penn, became his most commercially successful film of that period. Other film credits from those years include Iceman, Daniel, Turk 182, Made in Heaven, Q&A, Everybody's All-American, and The Dark Half (1993). In 1996, he appeared in the ensemble film Beautiful Girls alongside Natalie Portman.

Hutton made his Broadway debut in 1989, appearing opposite his Ordinary People co-star Elizabeth McGovern in A.R. Gurney's Love Letters. He followed that with a starring role in Craig Lucas's comedy Prelude to a Kiss, which also featured Mary-Louise Parker and Barnard Hughes, completing his Broadway work by 1990.

In addition to acting, Hutton has pursued directing. In 1984, he directed the music video for "Drive" by The Cars, and in 2010 he directed the video for "The House Rules" by Christian Kane. His other directing credits include the family film Digging to China (1997) and multiple episodes of the A&E series A Nero Wolfe Mystery, in which he also starred as Archie Goodwin from 2000 to 2002, serving additionally as an executive producer on that series. In 2001, he appeared in the television miniseries WW3, and in 2006 he played Conrad Cain in the NBC series Kidnapped. From 2008 to 2012, he starred as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT drama series Leverage, portraying a former insurance investigator who leads a group of thieves operating as modern-day Robin Hoods. He also appeared in the first season of the Amazon series Jack Ryan and was cast in John Ridley's ABC crime drama American Crime in 2014, opposite Felicity Huffman.

Outside of performance, Hutton is a co-owner of the New York City restaurant and bar P.J. Clarke's. In 2003, he became president of Players, a New York actors' club, resigning in June 2008 due to work commitments in Los Angeles. He was married to actress Debra Winger from 1986 to 1990, and the two had a son in 1987. In 2000, he married illustrator Aurore Giscard d'Estaing, niece of former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing; their son was born in Paris in 2001. A separation was reported in July 2009. In November 2019, a former child model and actress named Sera Johnston filed a criminal complaint with the Vancouver Police Department accusing Hutton of rape in 1983, when she was 14. Hutton denied the accusations and filed a criminal complaint against Johnston for extortion. Canadian authorities closed their investigation in July 2021 without filing charges.