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John Cameron Mitchell

John Cameron Mitchell (born April 21, 1963) is an American writer, actor, and director.

Mitchell was born in El Paso, Texas. The son of a retired general in the U.S. Army, he grew up on army bases and in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he attended Catholic schools. His mother is from Scotland and emigrated to the United States as a young woman.

In 1998, Mitchell wrote and starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, an off-Broadway musical about Hedwig, a transgendered rock musician chasing after an ex-lover who plagiarized her songs. Three years later, he directed the feature film version of the play, reprising his role as Hedwig. Both the play and the film were critical hits and have spawned cult followings.

Mitchell has also appeared as Dickon in the Broadway musical The Secret Garden, as well as in the acclaimed off-Broadway musical Hello Again, for which he received a Drama Desk nomination in 1994. He can be heard on the original cast recordings of both shows.

After the success of Hedwig, Mitchell expressed an interest in financing, writing, and directing a film which would be of high quality, but would incorporate explicit sex in a naturalistic way. After a two-year talent search and shooting process, Shortbus was presented in May 2006 at the Cannes Film Festival.

Mitchell was the executive producer of the 2004 film Tarnation, a critically praised and award-winning documentary about the life of a gay man named Jonathan Caouette. In 2005, he directed the music videos for Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life" and the Scissor Sisters' "Filthy/Gorgeous," the latter of which was banned from American MTV for its explicitly sexual content. The openly gay Mitchell has appeared as a pundit on Politically Incorrect and various VH1 programs.

Mitchell lives in New York City.

• John Cameron Mitchell and the Scissor Sisters's video of Filthy/Gorgeous
• BBC Collective Shortbus feature including John Cameron Mitchell video interview
• John Cameron Mitchell at the Internet Movie Database