Steven Wright

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
For other people named Steven Wright, see Steven Wright (disambiguation).
Steven Wright

Wright at Tufts University, 1994
Birth name Steven Alexander Wright
Born December 6, 1955 (1955-12-06) (age 56)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Medium stand-up, film, television
Nationality American
Years active 1979–present
Genres Surreal humor, one-liners, deadpan, Wit/Word play, Observational comedy, Musical comedy, post-modernism
Influences Woody Allen, George Carlin,[1] Bob Newhart[2]
Influenced Mitch Hedberg, Demetri Martin, Milton Jones, Jimmy Carr, Anthony Jeselnik, Zach Galifianakis, Matt Kopache, Billy Connolly
Notable works and roles I Have a Pony
K-Billy DJ in Reservoir Dogs
Speed in The Swan Princess
Guy on the Couch in Half Baked
I Still Have a Pony
Website StevenWright.com
Academy Awards
Best Short Film, Live Action
1988 The Appointments of Dennis Jennings

Steven Alexander Wright (born December 6, 1955) is an American comedian, actor and writer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical and sometimes nonsensical jokes, paraprosdokians, and one-liners with contrived situations.

Contents

[edit] Early life and career

Wright was born in Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and grew up in Burlington, Massachusetts,[3][4] one of four children of Lucille “Dolly” (née Lomano) and Alexander K. Wright.[3][5][6] He was raised Catholic.[7] His mother was Italian American and his father was of Scottish descent.[8] Wright's father, an electronics technician who "tested a lot of stuff for the Apollo space program," became a truck driver after that program ended.[3][dead link]

Wright spent two years obtaining an associate's degree from Middlesex Community College in Bedford, Massachusetts, before enrolling at Emerson College.[9] He graduated from the latter in 1978[9] and began performing stand-up comedy in 1979[3][10] at the Boston comedy club the Comedy Connection.[3][9] He cites George Carlin and Woody Allen among his influences.[11]

In 1982 Peter Lassally, executive producer of The Tonight Show, noticed Wright performing on a bill with other local comics at the comedy club Ding Ho,[12] in Cambridge's Inman Square,[13] a venue Wright described as "half Chinese restaurant and half comedy club. It was a pretty weird place".[3] Lassally booked Wright on The Tonight Show, where the comic so impressed host Johnny Carson and the studio audience that Wright was brought back less than a week later.[11] In May 2000, Wright and other Ding Ho alumni, including Lenny Clarke, Barry Crimmins, Steve Sweeney, Bill Sohonage, and Jimmy Tingle, appeared at a reunion benefit for comic Bob Lazarus, suffering from leukemia.[13]

[edit] Stand-up success

Wright's 1985 comedy album was entitled I Have a Pony. It was released on Warner Bros. Records, received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. The success of this album landed him a much coveted HBO special which he recorded as a live college concert performance, A Steven Wright Special. By now Wright had firmly developed a new brand of obscure, laid-back performing and was rapidly building a cult-like mystique and eclectic following of "hip", savvy fans. His opening act for the HBO concert was fellow "Ding Ho" comedy alumni Bill Sohonage who recounts that Steven's ultra-casual, nearly catatonic demeanor was no act. "He walked into my dressing room, minutes before I was to take the stage, and asked if he could borrow a shirt, as his had a giant pizza stain. You would think it might be normal to be a little nervous going on a college stage in front of 23,000, let alone having HBO out there filming but as I passed by his room while walking on-stage I saw him sound asleep and loudly snoring". The performance would become one of HBO's longest running and most requested comedy specials and propel him to huge success on the college arena concert circuits.

In 1989 he and fellow producer Dean Parisot won an Academy Award for their 30-minute short film "The Appointments of Dennis Jennings", directed by Parisot, written by Mike Armstrong and Wright, and starring Wright and Rowan Atkinson. Upon accepting the Oscar, Wright said, "Now I'm sorry I cut out that last hour-and-a-half." In 1992 Wright had a recurring role on the television sitcom Mad About You. He supplied the voice of the radio DJ in writer-director Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs that year. "Dean Parisot's wife Sally Menke is Quentin Tarantino's [film] editor, so when she was editing the movie and it was getting down toward the end where they didn't have the radio DJ yet, she thought of me and told Quentin and he liked the idea", Wright explained in 2009.[3]

Numerous lists of jokes attributed to Wright circulate on the Internet, sometimes of dubious origin. Wright has stated, "Someone showed me a site, and half of it that said I wrote it, I didn't write. Recently, I saw one, and I didn't write any of it. What's disturbing is that with a few of these jokes, I wish I had thought of them. A giant amount of them, I'm embarrassed that people think I thought of them, because some are really bad".[14]

After his 1990 comedy special Wicker Chairs and Gravity, Wright continued to do stand-up performances, but he was largely absent from television, only doing occasional guest spots on late-night talk shows. In 1999 he wrote and directed the 30-minute short "One Soldier", "about a soldier who was in the Civil War, right after the war, with all these existentialist thoughts and wondering if there is a God and all that stuff".[3]

In 2006 Wright produced his first stand-up special in 16 years, Steven Wright: When The Leaves Blow Away, originally airing on Comedy Central on October 21, 2006. Its DVD was released April 23, 2007.[citation needed] On September 25, 2007 Wright released his second album, I Still Have a Pony, a CD release of the material from When The Leaves Blow Away. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album but it lost to The Distant Future by Flight of the Conchords.

[edit] Awards and honors

Steven Wright was awarded an Oscar in 1989 for Best Short Live-Action Film for The Appointments of Dennis Jennings, which he co-wrote (with Michael Armstrong) and starred in.[15]

On December 15, 2008, Wright became the first inductee to the Boston Comedy Hall of Fame.[12][16]

In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. He was named #23 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics.[17]

[edit] Other interests

While not well known for works outside of the comedy realm, Steven Wright has also recorded several non-comedy songs with his friend and occasional actor Mark Wuethner.[18][19] Wright also has an apparent interest in painting.[20]

Beginning in 2009, Steven Wright sporadically appears as himself on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson as a visiting celebrity, ostensibly dropping by the show to help out with the fan mail segment. He joins a small cadre of Hollywood celebrities who lend their support to the show in this way.[21][22]

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Discography

[edit] Videography

  • Wicker Chairs and Gravity, HBO Stand-up Special (1991)[23]

[edit] References

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Steven Wright
  1. ^ The Comedy Couch - Steven Wright Interview
  2. ^ Steven Wright | AllMusic
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Lovece, Frank. "Comedian Steven Wright plays Westbury Sunday", Newsday, May 28, 2009
  4. ^ Gail Waterhouse (March 3, 2010). "a famous former Burlington resident". The Boston Globe. 
  5. ^ Obituary
  6. ^ "Cover Story; The (sur)real Steven Wright; He laughs easily, works hard for material". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 1987-08-01. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AT&p_theme=at&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EB7C2D383BE2F59&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved 2010-02-22. 
  7. ^ Steven Wright - Latest
  8. ^ Dana, Rebecca (2009-06-05). "Steven Wright on Letterman, Rembrandt and Being Short". Speakeasy. http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2009/06/05/steven-wright-on-letterman-rembrandt-and-being-short/tab/article/. Retrieved 2010-02-22. 
  9. ^ a b c Crane, Joyce Pellino. "Laugh Track: For more than five decades, Emerson College has been putting comics on the road to success", The Boston Globe, October 7, 2007
  10. ^ Young, Chris. "Behind a new album, comedian Steven Wright plays Pittsburgh for the first time in five years", Pittsburgh City Paper, October 11, 2007
  11. ^ a b Keepnews, Peter. "A Strange Career Takes an Odd Turn", The New York Times, February 10, 2008, Section AR; Column 0; Arts and Leisure Desk; Television; Pg. 11
  12. ^ a b Turbovsky, Rob. "Steven Wright inducted into Hall, a city’s comedy history celebrated", Punchline Magazine, December 22, 2008
  13. ^ a b Baltrusis, Sam. "Steven Wright headlines Ding Ho reunion benefit", LoadedGunBoston.com, April 8, 2008
  14. ^ "AV Club: Interview with Steven Wright", The Onion, 9 November 2006.
  15. ^ Steven Wright Main | All About Steven Wright - Moviefone
  16. ^ Miller, Jay, N. "The Wright stuff; Boston comedian is first inductee into hall of fame", The Patriot Ledger (Quincy, Massachusetts), December 15, 2008, Features; pg. 23
  17. ^ Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of all Time, Everything2.com
  18. ^ Steven Wright - Music
  19. ^ Mark Wuerthner at the Internet Movie Database
  20. ^ Steven Wright - Music & Paintings
  21. ^ STEVEN ON THE LATE LATE SHOW
  22. ^ The Late Late Show - Steven Wright Drops By
  23. ^ Steven Wright - The History

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steven_Wright&oldid=477779944"
Personal tools
Namespaces
Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export
Languages