Austin Miller is an American actor, dancer, and singer, known for television and stage performances. He played the part of Hawk in the soap opera Days of Our Lives, performed in the Hairspray musical in both a national tour and a Las Vegas production, and in 2007 was a second place finalist on the televised competition Grease: You're the One that I Want!, and has subsequently become a television and film writer and producer.

Biography

Miller was raised in the small town of Alvin, Texas (population 21,000), to a conservative Catholic family. Miller started performing at the age of 7, graduating from Alvin High School. He studied dance in Houston, and then briefly attended Texas's Baylor University on a vocal scholarship, where he joined Delta Tau Delta fraternity. But he dropped out to join a Las Vegas show, "Enter the Night," later performing in Starlight Express.
The 19-year-old Miller then went on a national tour with the Grease musical, playing the character of Kenickie (Rizzo's boyfriend, played by Jeff Conaway in the film). He also performed in Smokey Joe's Cafe, playing the character of Michael, and the National Tour of "Victor/Victoria".

After various musical theatre roles, he moved to Los Angeles, obtaining a part as the character, Hawk, on the popular soap opera Days of Our Lives, and also being cast in some small movie roles. He played Link Larkin in a nationally touring production of Hairspray. He also took on the same role in the short-lived Las Vegas production of Hairspray, which ran from February–June 2006 at the Luxor Hotel.


Grease

Though he had performed in the national tour of Grease, when he auditioned for the same role on Broadway, he was turned down as not "blue collar" enough. At the audition, however, he heard of and applied for the upcoming televised competition, Grease: You're the One that I Want! whose winners were to be cast in the lead roles of Danny and Sandy in the next Broadway production. Thousands of applicants were considered, with a few dozen then chosen to go to a "Grease Academy" bootcamp for one week. Miller proceeded through that step as well, and in 2007 was chosen to be one of the 12 contestants to go on to the live show, where call-in votes by the viewing audience were combined with judges' opinions to eliminate a different contestant each week. On both the February 11 and February 18, 2007 broadcasts one of the judges, influential producer David Ian, chose Miller as the "best Danny of the night." On March 18, 2007, Miller was named as one of the two finalists in the competition, and was told that there was only a 1% difference in voter opinion between him and the other finalist, "Slacker Danny" Max Crumm. On March 25, 2007, Crumm was declared the final winner.

In September 2007, Miller performed in the New York Musical Theatre Festival, in a show called TULLY (in no particular order). Since Grease, Austin has starred in the pre-Broadway run of "Trip of Love", and NYMF's Jerusalem Syndrome, as well as the symphony series "Elvis-from Broadway to Memphis". He also played Billy Lawlor in Goodspeed's production of "42nd Street" through July 3, 2009 as well as the National Tour that followed. Several stage appearances have followed, including starring as "Joseph" in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" in multiple venues, DC's Arena Stage's award winning production of "Sophisticated Ladies" with Maurice Hines, and starring as Joe Hardy in "Damn Yankees" with Andre De Sheilds.


Post-Grease
Branching into more creative areas, Austin most recently had an original screenplay picked up at Rocklin/Faust, a feature production company in Los Angeles associated with Alcon Entertainment. Also he continues to perform on stage and with his vocal group Wildfire with dates across the globe in 2014. In 2012, Austin played, against type, the role of Oscar in Sweet Charity in New York. In 2013 Austin co-produced the vocal group Del Mundo. In 2015 Austin starred in the series MESS and the new USA series DONNY!. This fall Austin stars in the multi-million dollar production Trip of Love at Stage 42 (formerly Little Shubert) in New York City. Currently he is producing the series "Bus & Truck".