The Definitive Guide to Comedy
The first time I met Harris Wittels, he was all of 21, and baring it all onstage at a naked comedy show. The next time I saw Wittels, he was a New Face at Montreal’s prestigious Just For Laughs festival. The third time? It could have been any number of …
Taylor Negron — stand-up comedian, actor, painter, poet and muse — died Saturday from cancer. Negron was 57. Born Brad Stephen Negron on Aug. 1, 1957, in Glendale, Calif., young Taylor already was performing stand-up comedy and appearing in episodes of The Dating Game by the time he matriculated at …
Longtime Chicago improv actor and teacher Jason R. Chin died suddenly Thursday night. Chin was 46. Improv Olympic founder Charna Halpern passed along the devastating news overnight. “I am heart broken. Our Jason Chin passed away,” Halpern wrote to friends. “He was a wonderful friend and a huge part of …
Sudden, sad news. Jan Hooks, who starred alongside one of Saturday Night Live‘s best casts ever from 1986-1991, has died. Hooks was 57. Her reps confirmed the news today. TMZ also reported that Hooks recently was battling with serious illness. More details are not yet available. Born April 23, 1957, …
An excerpt from Margaret Cho’s experience at the memorial service for Joan Rivers, held Sunday in New York City: The temple was huge and packed and silent and all her fancy friends were there, as well as many of us girl comics, because we had lost our dear leader (I …
Almost every comedian I know shared a photo and/or an anecdote about Joan Rivers tonight in the wake of her death at 81, a week after she suffered cardiac arrest and stopped breathing during throat surgery. (Read the obituary of Joan Rivers here) Looking at all of these photos shows …
The Kathy Griffin we all know today would not have existed as such without her. Same goes for hundreds of other comedians, male and female, straight and gay. The multiple hours of red carpet TV coverage devoted to celebrity gabbing and fashion gawking at every awards show would not exist …
You want to be able to quote his inspirational movie lines back to him, to step on a desk and shout to him, “O Captain! My Captain!” You want to be able to hug him close and tight and never let go, telling him, “It’s not your fault.” And then …
Don Pardo was such a fixture of Saturday Night Live that it’ll even take creating executive producer Lorne Michaels a few years still to catch him in terms of number of appearances/voiceovers. Pardo kept introducing us to comedians in their biggest breaks on SNL, doing the voiceovers for all about …
Stand-up comedian Rich Ceisler died this morning, two weeks after contracting a rare illness while performing on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. Ceisler was 58. The love of his life, Catherine, was with him when he died, and she’d been posting updates to his Facebook page regularly since Ceisler’s health …
