John Leguizamo's Real Name: John Alberto Leguizamo

Quick answer: John Leguizamo's full name is John Alberto Leguizamo. He was born on July 22 in Bogotá, Colombia, and grew up in Queens, New York. Sources disagree on his birth year. He is known for his solo stage shows Mambo Mouth, Freak, and Latin History for Morons, and for films such as Moulin Rouge! and Ice Age (Carnegie Corporation; Library of Congress).

Real name and early life

Carnegie Corporation of New York, now the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, profiles him in its "Great Immigrants" series as "John Alberto Leguizamo." It says he was born in Bogotá and moved to New York at age four. The Library of Congress files him as "Leguizamo, John." Its citations record that he was "sometimes credited as Damien Garcia" and give his birth as "July 22, 1965, in Bogotá."

The year varies by source. Biography.com gives July 22, 1964, while Wikipedia lists 1960, so this page does not commit to a single year. Wikipedia also adds the maternal surname Peláez, in keeping with Spanish naming custom; we did not find it in the other sources checked.

Biography.com says he grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, and that his parents divorced when he was 14. As a teenager he was arrested for hopping a subway turnstile and for truancy, and his parents sent him back to Colombia for a year. Teachers steered him toward acting classes, which he paid for with a job at Kentucky Fried Chicken, according to both Carnegie and Biography.com.

Career highlights

Leguizamo spent the 1980s in comedy clubs and made his film debut in Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989). Frustrated at being cast as thugs and drug dealers, he wrote solo shows that skewered Latino stereotypes. Mambo Mouth (1991) won an Obie Award and aired on HBO, and Spic-O-Rama followed in 1992. Carnegie says Freak (1998) made him the first Latino to star in a solo show on Broadway. Spike Lee directed its HBO special.

On screen he played a drag queen in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), Tybalt in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996), and roles in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam, Moulin Rouge!, Ice Age, and The Lincoln Lawyer. Smithsonian magazine reports that Latin History for Morons, his tour of 3,000 years of Latin American history, moved from the Public Theater to Broadway, earned a Special Tony Award, and was filmed for Netflix.

Name notes for searchers

He performs under his birth name. "Damien Garcia" is a credit the Library of Congress says he sometimes used. Because his birth year is listed as 1960, 1964, or 1965, his age shows up differently from site to site.