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Birth Name: John Christopher McGinley
Birth Date: 3rd August, 1959
Age: 49
Birth Place: Greenwich Village, New York City, United States
Active in career since – 1986

Early Life

McGinley is the son of stockbroker Gerald McGinley and school teacher Patricia. His family originally hails from Donegal, Ireland and he was brought up in Millburn, New Jersey, where at the Millburn High School he played for the school’s football team. At Syracuse University, he studied acting and also at Tisch School of the Arts (New York University). After his studies he did a lot of work for Broadway productions, including some work on the soap opera, Another World. He even took up the job as a ball spotter at the age of 20 at the 1980 U.S. Open.

Works

McGinley did a variety of work on films, especially as a character artist. He started off in 1986 with the film Sweet Liberty. This was followed by movies like: Platoon (1986), Wall Street (1987), Talk Radio (1988), Shakedown (1988), Prisoners of Inertia (1989), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Fat Man and Little Boy (1989), Suffering Bastards (He wrote the script of the movie too)(1990), Point Break (1991), Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), Article 99 (1992), Cruel Doubt (1992), A Midnight Clear (1992), Hear No Evil (1993), Watch It (1993), On Deadly Ground ( 1994), Surviving the Game (1994), Car 54, Where Are You? (1994), Wagons East! (1994), The Last Outlaw (1994), Born to be Wild (1995), Se7en (1995), Nixon (1995), The Rock (1996), Set It Off (1996), Flypaper (1997), Intensity (1997), Truth or Consequences, N.M. (1997), Nothing to Lose (1997), The Pentagon Wars (1998), Target Earth (1998), The Odd Couple II (1998), Office Space (1999), Any Given Sunday (1999), Three to Tango (1999), The Jack Bull (1999), Sole Survivor (2000), Get Carter (2000), Summer Catch(2001), The Animal (2001), Stealing Harvard (2002), Highway (2002), Identity (2003), Puff, Puff, Pass (2006), A.W.O.L. (2006), Two Tickets to Paradise (2006), Wild Hogs (2007), Are We Done Yet? (2007).

On TV his presence can be seen in shows like: Clinton and Nadine (1988), Seat of Power (1994), The Practice (1997), Intensity (1997), Scrubs (2001- present), Clone High (2002), Kim Possible (2003), Justice League Unlimited (2004), The Boondocks (2005).

He also did a voice over for the lead character in the Sony PSP video game Dead Head Fred.

Apart from this he has done commercials for Miller Light (since the 2007 NFL season), Champions Tour etc. He was also the narrator of the documentary of the Detroit Red Wings’ 2008 Stanley Cup Championship.

Big Tent Entertainment published McGinley’s book Untalkative Bunny: How to Be Heard Without Saying a Word in 2005.

Scrubs

In the hit Comedy drama Scrubs, which started in 2001, McGinley portrayed the character of Dr. Percival "Perry" Cox who is the senior attending Physician at the Sacred Heart Hospital, apart from being the Residency Doctor. Later he replaces Bob Kelso to become to the Chief of Medicine at the hospital. He has a mentoring relationship with J.D, the lead character of the show but throughout he is acidic and critical towards him. This, he claims is due to the fact that he wants to train J.D. well for the difficulties of a doctor’s life.

McGinley is credited with three major improvisations of Cox’s character. First is his usage of girls’ names for J.D. (something which he himself does with his friends in real life), whistling, and his habit of touching his nose which means "It's gonna be OK." [This was his way of paying tribute to Robert Redford’s character in The Sting].

Personal Life

McGinley married Lauren Lambert in February, 1997 but the couple got divorced in December, 2001. They had a boy together, Max (born – 1997) who suffers from Down syndrome. iParenting.com named him the "Dad of the Month" in October, 2002. After dating Nichole Kessler, a yoga instructor for a couple of years McGinley became engaged with her in August 2006. They married on 7th April 2007 and a baby girl was born to them on 2nd February, 2008, who was named Billie Grace.

Along with fellow actor Willem Dafoe, John owns a stake in one of Billy Gilroy’s SoHo bistros in New York. McGinley also became the national spokesperson for the National Down Syndrome’s annual Buddy Walk in 2006.
In 1994, he made an appearance on the Celebrity Challenge, which happened on the TV show American Gladiator.

John now days resides at Malibu, California, and is quite an active member of the Malibu Mob, which is a group of celebrity friends and has members like Tony Danza, John Cusack, Detroit Red Wings, Chris Chelios, Laird Hamilton, John McEnroe and Gabrielle Reece.