John Barrowman was born on March 11, 1967 in Glasgow, Scotland. He is the youngest of the three; he has a sister, Carole, and a brother, Andrew. His mother worked in a record store, sparking his interest in music, and his father worked for Caterpillar. His dad's employer relocated the family to Aurora, Illinois when John was eight. But John continued to follow his childhood dream of becoming an entertainer. He began performing in plays in high school, which set him on his lifelong path as an entertainer. He performed at Opryland in Nashville after graduation, but London was calling. His big break came in 1989 when he scored the role in the West End musical Anything Goes.

John followed up his auspicious debut in Anything Goes with roles in Miss Saigon, in which he appeared opposite his Torchwood co-star Naoko Mori; Matador, opposite Stefanie Powers; Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, Evita, and Sunset Boulevard; and Hair. When he returned to America to join the cast of CBS' Central Park West, he debuted on Broadway in a U.S. production of Sunset. In 1998, he was nominated for Best Actor in a Musical for playing Cal Chandler in the West End production of The Fix. In 2005, he faced off with Rob Lowe in a UK production of A Few Good Men.

In 1995, Darren Star, creator of Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place, cast Barrowman in the CBS primetime soap, Central Park West, which co-starred Mariel Hemingway, Lauren Hutton, and Twin Peaks' Mädchen Amick. Barrowman played Assistant DA Peter Fairchild, brother of the conniving Carrie Fairchild (Amick). After the show's short run, Barrowman was later cast in Aaron Spelling's NBC soap, Titans, on which he played the scheming Peter Williams. The show ran 13 episodes in 2000-01, but Barrowman was catapulted into TV stardom with his role as Captain Jack Harkness on Doctor Who and its spinoff, Torchwood.

John had honed his skills in musical theater for years, and it was only a matter of time before he began releasing his own albums. And his first three albums were collections of Barrowman's favorite musical numbers: Aspects of Lloyd Webber, Reflections From Broadway, and Swings Cole Porter. With his fourth album, Another Side, John took on some of pop music's biggest classics, including "I'm All Out of Love". That album and its accompanying UK tour were such rousing successes that he released another album of pop hits, Music Music Music, a year later. That album features the hit single, "What About Us?," written by Take That singer Gary Barlow.

John Barrowman can add author and comic book artist to his already full resume. With the help of his sister Carole, he has published his memoir, the best-selling Anything Goes, which The Daily Telegraph called "charmingly lurid." He and his sister also wrote the story for an original Torchwood comic strip for Torchwood magazine. Captain Jack and the Selkie follows Captain Jack as he faces a deadly threat on a remote Scottish island where people are disappearing one-by-one. They collaborated with comic artists Tommy Lee Edwards and Trevor Goring. John says, "The four of us hit it off immediately, and I asked if they'd ever be interested in working with us on a Captain Jack project. They thought about it, for, oh, about 30 seconds, and so Captain Jack and the Selkie was born!"

Barrowman is a strong supporter of gay rights, hosting Gay Pride in London in 2007, appearing with his life partner Scott Gill (seen in the photo at left). He is also a proponent of arts education for young people, returning to his old haunt, Joliet West High School, to hold theater workshops for students. Those workshops have been expanded to other schools.