"[My dad] was twice widowed. He was divorced from my mom when she died, but even so, there's a deep sense of tragedy in that. I never had the opportunity to, as an adult, sit down and talk to him about that. It's a real loss. I was quasi-adopted by my friends' families... And even today I get emails or cards from these women who, for lack of a better word, were my mom. We talk about what it means to be a family. Mostly it's about showing up. And being aware enough to check in and say, 'How are you doing?' I've been incredibly lucky to have these people in my life."
Jonathan Daniel Hamm was born on March 10, 1971, in St. Louis, Missouri,[8][9] the son of Deborah (née Garner) Hamm, a secretary, and Daniel Hamm, who managed a family trucking company.[10][11][12] Hamm is of German, French, English, and Irish descent; his surname came from German immigrants.[13] He was raised Catholic.[14] His parents divorced when he was two years old, and he lived in the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur with his mother[12] until her death from colon cancer when Hamm was 10 years old.[15] He then lived with his father and grandmother in nearby Normandy[16] until his father died ten years after his mother, effectively making Hamm an orphan at 20.[17]
His first acting role was as Winnie-the-Pooh in first grade.[18] At 16, he was cast as Judas in the play Godspell[19] and enjoyed the experience, though he did not take acting seriously. He attended John Burroughs School, a private school in Ladue, where he was a member of the football, baseball and swim teams.[20] During this time, he dated Sarah Clarke, who became an actress.[21]
After graduation in 1989, Hamm enrolled at the University of Texas.[22] While a member of Sigma Nu fraternity at that university, Hamm was arrested along with seven other students for violently attacking and severely injuring a fellow student as part of fraternity hazing in November 1990.[23] Hamm admitted the crime as part of a deferred adjudication plea deal and the charges were dismissed following the completion of probation.[23][24] He later transferred to the University of Missouri.[22] He answered an advertisement from a theater company seeking players for a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and was cast in the production.[20] Other roles followed, such as Leon Czolgosz in Assassins.[25]
After graduating in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English,[24] Hamm returned to his high school to teach eighth-grade acting.[12][20][26] One of his students was Ellie Kemper, who became an actress. Years later, Hamm appeared in Kemper's Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.[27]
Hamm, who didn't wish to pursue a "normal career," moved to Los Angeles permanently in 1995.[28][21] He moved into a house with four other aspiring actors and began working as a waiter while attending auditions.[20] He acted in theater, including as Flavius in a production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens with the Sacred Fools Theater Company.[29] Looking older than his age, he found it difficult to find work as an actor, despite representation by the William Morris Agency.[21][30][28][31] In 1998, after he failed to get any acting work for three years, William Morris dropped him as a client.[11] He continued working as a waiter[20] and, briefly, worked as a set designer for a softcore pornography movie.[30] He decided that his 30th birthday would be his deadline to succeed in Hollywood,[19] and has said:
You either suck that up and find another agent, or you go home and say you gave it a shot, but that's the end of that. The last thing I wanted to be out here was one of those actors who's 45 years old, with a tenuous grasp of their own reality, and not really working much. So I gave myself five years. I said, if I can't get it going by the time I'm 30, I'm in the wrong place. And as soon as I said that, it's like I started working right away.[20]
Hamm landed his breakthrough role in 2007, when he was chosen from over 80 candidates[30] to play Don Draper, protagonist of AMC's drama series Mad Men. In the series, set in a fictional 1960s Madison Avenuead agency, he played a suave, married, philandering executive with an obscure past.[37] He recalled, "I read the script for Mad Men and I loved it... I never thought they'd cast me—I mean, I thought they'd go with one of the five guys who look like me but are movie stars."[38] He believes that an actor with a "proven track record" would likely have been chosen if another network had produced the show.[28] He went through numerous auditions; each time he explained to the casting directors what he could bring to the character, if given the part.[20]Alan Taylor and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner initially thought he was "too handsome" for the role, but ultimately decided, "it was perfect to cast sort of the perfect male in this part." Weiner also sensed that Hamm had suffered the early loss of his parents, similarly to Draper's backstory.[11][39] Hamm says that he used memories of his father to portray Draper, a well-dressed, influential man of business and society[18] hiding great inner turmoil[11] and experiencing changes in the world beyond his control.
Hamm's next film role was in the 2008 science fiction movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, a remake of the classic 1951 film of the same name.[49] It received mixed reviews[50] but was financially successful, earning $230 million worldwide.[51] Hamm hosted Saturday Night Live, season 34, episode 6, on October 25, 2008,[52] and played various roles, including Don Draper in two sketches.[53] He returned as host again on January 30 and October 30, 2010.[54][55] In 2009, he guest-starred in three episodes of the NBC television sitcom 30 Rock as Drew Baird, a doctor who is a neighbor and love interest of Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) earning three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.[56][57] Hamm's first leading film role came with the independent mystery thriller Stolen in 2009, in which he played a police officer whose son has been missing for eight years.[58][59] In 2010 he had a minor voice role in the animated feature Shrek Forever After as an ogre leader named Brogan. The film received mixed reviews but was a commercial success.[60]
He played as an FBI agent in the crime drama The Town with Ben Affleck.[61] After receiving "about 40 scripts that were all set in the 60s, or had me playing advertising guys," Hamm was pleased that The Town offered him a role that was "the opposite to Don Draper."[62] It received generally favorable reviews[63] and earned $144 million worldwide.[64] His next acting role was as defense attorney Jake Ehrlich in the independent film Howl, based on Allen Ginsberg's eponymous 1956 poem.[65] On December 12, 2010, he made a guest appearance as an FBI supervisor on Fox's animated series The Simpsons.[66] He was featured in Zack Snyder's action-fantasy film Sucker Punch (2011) as the character High Roller and the doctor.[67] He also had a supporting role in the comedy Bridesmaids as Kristen Wiig's "rude and arrogant sex buddy."[68] He was next seen in the independent feature Friends with Kids (2011), which he produced with his then-partner Jennifer Westfeldt.[69] The story concerns a group of friends whose lives are changed as the couples in the group begin to have children. Hamm and Westfedlt acted alongside Adam Scott, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Megan Fox.
In 2022, Hamm appeared in Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to 1986's Top Gun. The same year, Hamm reunited with Greg Mottola on their second collaboration and his Mad Men co-star John Slattery for Confess, Fletch. It is the first installment in the Fletch series to not star Chevy Chase in the titular role. Hamm plays Fletch in the film and received positive reviews for his performance and comedic timing.[87][88] It was released theatrically on September 16, 2022, and premiered on Showtime on October 28, 2022. The following year he joined the Apple TV+ drama series The Morning Show, appearing alongside Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon.
Internationally considered to be a sex symbol, Hamm was named one of Salon's Sexiest Man Living in 2007[90] and one of People's Sexiest Men Alive in 2008.[91]Entertainment Weekly named him one of their Entertainers of the Year in both 2008 and 2010.[92][93] Hamm also won GQ's "International Man" award in September 2010.[94]
In 2010, Mercedes-Benz hired Hamm (replacing actor Richard Thomas) as the new voiceover of their commercials, beginning with a commercial for the S400 Hybrid campaign.[95] In 2013, American Airlines debuted a television commercial titled "Change is in the Air," featuring Hamm's voice-over. Hamm is an American Airlines frequent flier and his Mad Men character Don Draper often spoke of aspiring to win such accounts as American Airlines.[96] Hamm has also appeared in several commercials in an ongoing ad campaign for H&R Block income tax services.[97] He also appears in ongoing ads in Canada for SkipTheDishes.[98] In January 2022 he appeared on an Apple TV+ ad titled "Everyone but Jon Hamm" showcasing the streaming service's wide array of A-list actresses and actors participating in original Apple productions.[99] Also in 2022, Hamm was featured in a series of TV commercials for Progressive Insurance as having an off-and-on relationship with spokesperson Flo.[100]
Hamm stopped smoking at age 24, but his role as Don Draper required him to smoke.[101][102] Instead of actual cigarettes, he smoked herbal cigarettes that did not contain tobacco or nicotine.[102][103]
In March 2015, Hamm's representative confirmed that he had recently completed in-patient treatment for alcoholism.[23][104] Hamm also reported developing vitiligo during the filming of Season 1 of Mad Men.[105]
Hamm was in a long-term relationship with actress and screenwriter Jennifer Westfeldt from 1997 to 2015.[15][106] Along with Westfeldt, Hamm appeared in Gap-related campaign advertisements.[107] In April 2009, Hamm and Westfeldt formed their own production company, Points West Pictures.[108][109]
In February 2023, Hamm became engaged to actress Anna Osceola after two years of dating. The two were married in June 2023, by Anderson Canyon in Big Sur, California.[110][111][112] Osceola briefly appeared as the flower child receptionist at the California coastal retreat that Hamm's character stayed at in the 2015 series finale of Mad Men.[113] Anderson Canyon stood in for the Esalen Institute setting in the episode.[114]
Hamm is a devoted fan of the St. Louis BluesNational Hockey League (NHL) team and has appeared in two television advertisements for the team.[115] He is also a fan of the St. Louis CardinalsMajor League Baseball (MLB) team[116] and narrated the official highlight movie for the 2011 World Series, won by the Cardinals.[117] He also narrates the AmazonNFL documentary series All or Nothing, as of 2015. In 2012, he played in the MLB Legend and Celebrity All Star Softball game as a member of the National League. He represented the Cardinals and hit a home run during the game. In 2018, he narrated the video The Saint Louis Browns: The Team That Baseball Forgot, presented by the Saint Louis Browns Historical Society.[118]
^"Breakout: Jon Hamm". GQ. November 1, 2008. Archived from the original on January 25, 2023. Retrieved January 25, 2023.
^ abIlley, Chrissy (April 27, 2008). "The interview: Jon Hamm". The Guardian. UK. Archived from the original on June 14, 2013. Retrieved January 26, 2009.
^Pennington, Gail (February 18, 2001). "Providence made St. Louisan a star, and he's taking it from there". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. p. 42.
^ abBland, Pete (July 27, 2008). "Mad man — Jon Hamm's rise to becoming the slickest, suavest man on television has deep, dedicated roots in Columbia". Columbia Daily Tribune.
^Handy, Bruce (September 2009). "Don and Betty's Paradise Lost". Vanity Fair. p. 5. Archived from the original on August 29, 2010. Retrieved September 13, 2010.
^Bruno, Mike (October 26, 2008). "Jon Hamm crashes 'SNL'". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on May 18, 2013. Retrieved February 11, 2009.
^Snyder, Gabriel (July 2008). "Jon Hamm". W. p. 2. Archived from the original on October 14, 2008. Retrieved February 10, 2009.
^ abDodd, Johnny; Natasha Stoynoff (September 10, 2007). "Mad About Him". People. Archived from the original on August 29, 2016. Retrieved February 13, 2009.
^Elliott, Stuart (November 12, 2008). "Holiday Campaigns Bring on the Humor to Reassure Consumers". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 11, 2009. Retrieved February 12, 2009. The celebrities in the Gap campaign include Jon Hamm of Mad Men ... with his girlfriend, the actress Jennifer Westfeldt.