Tom Cavanagh
Thomas Cavanagh (born October 26, 1963[1]) is a Canadian actor and director. He is known for a variety of roles on American television, including starring roles in Ed (2000–2004), Love Monkey (2006) and Trust Me (2009), and recurring roles on Providence and Scrubs. From 2014 to 2023, he portrayed Eobard Thawne / Reverse-Flash and the various versions of Harrison Wells on The CW television series The Flash; Cavanagh also directed several episodes of The Flash. In 2023, he became the host of Hey Yahoo on GSN.[2]
For other people named Tom Cavanagh, see Tom Cavanagh (disambiguation).
Tom Cavanagh
Actor
1989–present
4
Early life[edit]
Thomas Cavanagh was born on October 26, 1963, in Ottawa, Ontario,[1] to a Roman Catholic family of Irish descent.[3] Cavanagh moved with his family to Winneba, a small city in Ghana when he was a child.[4]
In his teens, the family moved to Lennoxville, Quebec when his father became the Academic Dean of Champlain College.[5][6] He attended the Séminaire de Sherbrooke, where he studied in French and played basketball for the Barons. He later studied at Champlain College in Lennoxville at the CEGEP level. While attending Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, he became interested in theatre and music and played ice hockey and varsity basketball. He graduated in 1987 with degrees in English, biology and education.[1][7]
Career[edit]
Commercial credits[edit]
Cavanagh acted in his native Canada for many years, appearing on television dramas such as Jake and the Kid in the late 1990s, and television commercials, appearing for Oh Henry! chocolate bars[8] and Labatt Blue Light beer commercials[9] in the 1990s and for CIBC.
Broadway roles[edit]
In 1989, he was cast in the Broadway revival of Shenandoah. Other stage credits include productions of A Chorus Line, Cabaret, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Urinetown and Grease. He appeared in the 2008 production of Some Americans Abroad at Second Stage Theatre in New York City.[10]
Television performances[edit]
After gaining notice for his recurring role as Doug the Dog Guy in the NBC television program Providence, Cavanagh was cast as the title character in the NBC program Ed. Cavanagh received a Golden Globe nomination and a TV Guide Award for his work on Ed, which ran for four seasons beginning in October 2000 and concluding in February 2004.[4]
Personal life[edit]
Cavanagh married Maureen Grise, an image editor for Sports Illustrated, on July 31, 2004, in a Catholic ceremony on Nantucket, Massachusetts.[20] The couple have two daughters and two sons.[21]
Cavanagh ran the 2006 New York City Marathon.[22]
In summer 2008, he founded the Cavanagh Classic, an annual celebrity basketball tournament in Rucker Park in Harlem to raise money and awareness for Nothing But Nets. The charity's goal is to combat malaria by sending mosquito nets to families that need them. Cavanagh travelled to Rwanda on a March 2009 United Nations Foundation trip to distribute the nets and educate the recipients in their use.[23]