Actor John Lithgow on how his family left Wales for Ohio’s Welsh Hills

Actor John Lithgow described how his grandfather left Wales and found a place similar to home thousands of miles across the Atlantic.

Orlo Price and other family members settled in a US town called Welsh Hills, Ohio, and started fruit farming in the 19th century.

Lithgow, 80, visited Wales around 55 years ago and said it is “waiting for me to go seek out my roots”.

The actor is widely-known for his starring role as Dick Solomon in the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun and for parts in in Dexter, The Crown and Shrek.

The first Welsh families arrived in Ohio in the early 1800s, settling in an area of fertile land with hills and valleys, and an abundance of timber and natural springs, which is said to have reminded them of home.

Orlo Price, Lithgow’s grandfather on his mother’s side, was one of eight brothers who settled there.

“It was almost like a ‘How Green Was My Valley’ story,” Lithgow told Lucy Owen on BBC Radio Wales.

“They all came over together in the 19th century to settle in the Welsh Hills of Ohio, near the town of Granville.”

Oscar-nominated Lithgow grew up in southern Ohio, but remembered travelling to the Welsh Hills.

“We’d visit the Price relatives in these rolling hills covered with peach trees and apple trees,” he added.

“It was like visiting Wales.”

Despite the family connection, he said he’s only been to Wales once.

He said: “I remember making a destination trip to Caernarfon when I was a drama student. But apart from that I have not been back to Wales to my shame.

“It’s sitting there, waiting for me to go seek out my roots.”

Last year, the actor played Cardiff-born children’s author Roald Dahl in Giant on stage in London’s West End, winning an Olivier award for his performance.

This spring, the play moved to Broadway.

Lithgow likes to create nicknames for fellow cast members, a tradition which began after starring with Welsh actor Matthew Rhys in the American TV reboot of the detective series Perry Mason.

Lithgow saw online that in a bio about himself, someone had written that his nickname was Jiggles.

He said: “Now this was the first I had ever heard of this, who in the world has ever named me Jiggles?

“But I made the mistake of telling Matthew Rhys that I discovered this and his face lit up.

“From that day I was Jiggles forever and he became Wiggles.”

Lithgow’s latest film is Jimpa, which he said is “a great portrait of generational changes in the gay community”.

He stars alongside Olivia Coleman, playing a flamboyant and charismatic character who came out as gay in the 70s and went on to become a radical lecturer and campaigner on issues such as HIV.

“It’s very interesting to work in an atmosphere where there were so many gay and trans people among the crew, and the cast,” Lithgow added.

“I was the outlier in many ways, this straight actor playing this flamboyantly gay man.”

He said it was a joyful project, adding: “In the space of a couple of years I’ve worked with Olivia Coleman and Matthew Rhys, who are like, the best in the business.”