John Wesley Shipp

In 2005, John appeared in the short film Starcrossed with Marshall Allman from Prison Break. The film won First Prize for Best Drama at the PlanetOut Short Movie Awards in Miami, Florida.

Throughout his career John has appeared on the cover of a wide variety of magazines including Soap Opera Digest, TV Guide, and Starlog.

John says his favorite episode of The Flash was "Twin Streaks" because it gave him the chance to "stretch a bit" as an actor. In the episode Shipp not only played "The Flash," but his clone as well.

As a cast member of Guiding Light in the early 1980s, John often appeared on-screen shirtless, in a bathing suit, or wrapped in a towel. In the 1990s he appeared in an HBO movie, Strangers, in which he did a nude scene. This whole state of undress caused John's grandmother to ask him, 'Are you ever going to do anything and keep your clothes on?' Shipp jokes that one day someone will tell him to 'keep your shirt on!'

John says one of the people he enjoyed working with most while making the television series The Flash was Dane Farwell, who appeared in nearly every episode of the series, as John's stunt double.

In the early 90s John did double duty on All My Children and in Broadway's Dancing With Lughnasa. Unfortunately, doing both shows took its toll on him and he ruptured a vocal chord, causing the AMC writers to send his character off to a prison for the criminally insane.

John was chosen from a group of 60 different actors to play the lead role in the television series The Flash. His main competition for the part was actor Richard Burgi, who went on to guest star on the show in the episode "Deadly Nightshade".

Douglas Marland, head writer for the CBS soap opera As the World Turns, created the part of "Douglas Cummings" specifically for John. The two had worked together previously on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light.

John attended Indiana University, but dropped out after two years.

John admits that when The Flash was released on DVD in early 2006 he was both shocked and disappointed that he was not approached to provide commentary or interviews for the release. He is, however, very happy with the finished product even without his additional input.

John admits that when his manager first mentioned doing The Flash to him he thought, "Oh God, never!" He soon changed his mind, and played the role throughout the show's entire run of 21 episodes.

While on the CBS soap opera, Guiding Light, John shared a dressing room with co-star Kevin Bacon.

John's theater credits include: - Sit Down and Eat before Our Love Gets Cold - Safe Sex - Stopping the Desert - Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - The Killing of Michael Malloy

As teenagers, John and his sister would have a party every year for their friends on Christmas Eve. In 1969, members of their community learned that some of the kids attending the party that year were black. When John's father, who was a Baptist Minister at the time, was asked by members of the church to keep his children from having the party, he refused. That night, the Shipp house was riddled with bullets, but thankfully nobody was hurt. John's father, however, was fired the next day. Thirty years later, the community issued a public apology to his father and presented him with the key to the city.

In 1981 John released an album titled Images. He also performs on the album Soap Opera Christmas.

John studied acting with Julie Bovasso at LaMama Theater in New York.

John Wesley Shipp is slightly hearing impaired.

John is 6'1" with brown hair and brown eyes.

John won consecutive Daytime Emmy Awards in 1986 and 1987. The first was for his role of Doug Cummings on As the World Turns in the category of "Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series". The second was for his role of Martin Ellis on Santa Barbara in the category of " Outstanding Guest Performer in a Drama Series."