Tony®, Emmy® and Golden Globe®-winning actor John Lithgow is coming to Turner Classic Movies to host this summer's edition of TCM ESSENTIALS JR. Lithgow, who has also earned acclaim as a children's author, will present 13 films ideal for parents to introduce to their kids, beginning Sunday, June 7, with the musical classic Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). John Lithgow burst onto the scene in 1973, when he won a Tony Award for his work in David Storey's The Changing Room. Since then, he has appeared in nearly 20 Broadway productions, earning another Tony, three Tony nominations, four Drama Desk Awards and induction into the Theatre Hall of Fame. Among the many productions in which he has appeared are My Fat Friend, Trelawney of the 'Wells', Comedians, Anna Christie, Bedroom Farce, Beyond Therapy, M. Butterfly, The Front Page, Retreat from Moscow, Mrs. Farnsworth and the musicals Sweet Smell of Success and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. In 2007, he made his Royal Shakespeare Company debut in Neil Bartlett's production of Twelfth Night. He also presented his one-man show, John Lithgow: Stories by Heart, at Lincoln Center and recently returned to the stage in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. On screen, Lithgow most recently appeared in the hit comedy Confessions of a Shopaholic. His extensive list of film credits includes back-to-back Oscar® nominations for The World According to Garp and Terms of Endearment. He has also appeared in such films as All That Jazz, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Footloose, 2010, Buckaroo Banzai, Harry and the Hendersons, Ricochet, Cliffhanger, Orange County, Kinsey and Dreamgirls, as well as the Brian De Palma thrillers Obsession, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out and Raising Cain. Lithgow earned an Emmy for his performance in an episode of Amazing Stories and three additional Emmys for his memorably performance on the long-running comedy 3rd Rock from the Sun, which also scored him a Golden Globe, two SAG Awards®, an American Comedy Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Lithgow has penned seven New York Times best-selling children's books, created two activities books for parents and children, developed readers for use in elementary schools and compiled 50 classic poems aimed at young people. He has earned two Parents' Choice Silver Honor Awards and four Grammy® nominations. Simon & Schuster recently released his newest children's book, I Got Two Dogs. Lithgow has also performed concerts for children with the Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Baltimore and San Diego symphony orchestras, and at Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke's. He has also released three albums for kids.