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Michael Richards

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Michael Richards
Michael Richards at the 45th Emmy Awards, August, 1993
Height6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)[1]
Spouse(s)Cathleen Richards
(divorced)
For other people named Michael Richards, see Michael Richards (disambiguation).

Michael Anthony Richards (born July 24, 1949) is an American comedic actor, who played Cosmo Kramer on the television show Seinfeld, a role which earned him three Emmy Awards.

Biography

Early life

Michael Richards was born in Culver City, California, to William Richards, an electrical engineer; and Phyllis Nardozzi, a medical records librarian. Richards was brought up with no specific religious tradition.[2] He attended the California Institute of the Arts but received a BA degree in drama from The Evergreen State College in 1975. He also had a short-lived Improv act with Ed Begley, Jr. during this period. Enrolled at Los Angeles Valley College, he continued to dominate student productions. He later said: "I am grateful that the public schools introduced me to the performing arts." He was drafted during the Vietnam War and stationed in Germany as one of the co-directors of the V Corps Training Road Show. He produced and directed shows dealing with race relations and drug abuse; "This was a successful, educational operation, boosting the morale of our men and incorporating the arts into the service." He then spent two years in the Army developing educational skits, and a couple more years "finding himself" at a commune in the Santa Clara Mountains. In 1979, he drove a bus and developed a stand-up comedy act.

Television and film career

Richards got his big TV break nine months later appearing in Billy Crystal's first cable TV special. In 1980, he began as one of the cast members on ABC's Fridays television show, including a famous instance in which guest Andy Kaufman refused to deliver his scripted lines, leading Richards to bring the cue cards on screen to Kaufman, before a small riot ensued (Richards later claimed he was in on the joke).[3] He was also famous for a sketch that he did on the show, during which he simply improvised with a large pile of dirt and some army toys. Richards had a guest starring role on NBC's Miami Vice as an unscrupulous bookie. He also had a guest role on Cheers as a character trying to collect on an old bet with Sam Malone. He made several guest appearances with Jay Leno as an accident-prone fitness expert, and gained a screen credit portraying "Stanley Spadowski" in "Weird Al" Yankovic's movie UHF in 1989. His famous improvisation skills can be witnessed in this movie. As is confirmed in the feature commentary and in the deleted scenes special feature on the UHF DVD, the scene where Stanley Spadowski was playing with the toy man he found in the box of Corn Flakes was completely improvised by Michael.

In the same year, he was cast as Kramer (based on the real-life Kenny Kramer) in the NBC television series Seinfeld, which was created by fellow Fridays cast member Larry David and comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Although it got off to a slow start, by the mid-1990s, the show had become one of the most popular sitcoms in television history. The series ended its nine-year run in 1998 at #1 in the Nielsen Ratings. He also played himself in Episode 6 of Season 1 "The Flirt Episode" (1992) of the acclaimed HBO series, The Larry Sanders Show.

Richards also played a cameo role in So I Married an Axe Murderer where he was an "insensitive man," and had a supporting role as an escaped convict in the John Ritter movie Problem Child. He also made guest appearances on the popular sitcom Night Court.

In 2000, after the end of Seinfeld, Richards began work on a new series for NBC, his first major project since Seinfeld's high-profile finale. The Michael Richards Show, for which the actor received co-writer and co-executive producer credits, was originally conceived as a comedy/mystery starring Richards as a bumbling private eye. However, after the first pilot failed with test audiences, NBC ordered that the show be retooled into a more conventional, office-based sitcom before its premiere. After a few weeks of poor ratings and negative reviews, it was canceled.

The lead role in the series Monk was originally written for Richards,[4] but there was concern that audiences, used to seeing him do comedy, might not accept him in the role. [5] After being developed at ABC and then picked up by USA, the show was cast with Tony Shalhoub and became a critically acclaimed hit.

Starting in 2004, he and his fellow Seinfeld cast members have provided interviews and audio commentaries for the Seinfeld DVDs.

Personal life

Richards married former casting director Cathleen Richards and they had a daughter, Sophia. The two were divorced in 1990 and he resides northwest of the San Fernando Valley, specifically the Conejo Valley, near Thousand Oaks, California. Richards is a Master Mason and also holds 33° in the Scottish Rite. He was very active in preservation of Masonic research, and in his personal life is an avid reader. Richards holds memberships in the following lodges: Riviera Lodge No. 780, Culver City–Foshay Lodge No. 467, as well as the Southern California Research Lodge. Additionally, he is also a Life Member of the Los Angeles Scottish Rite Valley and a Life Member of the Scottish Rite Research Society.[6][7]

Laugh Factory incident

On November 17, 2006, during a performance at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, California, a cell phone video captured Richards[8] shouting with a graphic reference to lynching[9] and yelling several times, "He's a nigger!"[10] at some customers, whom media reports described as "black hecklers".[11] According to Kyle Doss the group he was in had entered the club in the middle of Richards' performance. In an interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Doss explained the events prior to the start of the cell phone video thusly: "I guess we're being a little loud, because there was 20 of us ordering drinks. And he [Richards] said, 'Look at the stupid Mexicans and blacks being loud up there.'"[12]

During a November 20, 2006 satellite appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman Richards stated that he later returned to the stage to apologize, but by that time, most of the audience had already left. He made a public apology on the show, described his "rage" and told Letterman that he was trying to undermine the hecklers by being more outrageous, but his approach backfired. Richards also met with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in order to discuss the personal issues that fueled his tirade. The Laugh Factory has since stated that Richards is no longer welcome to perform at the venue.[13]

Filmography

Faye Dunaway and Michael Richards at the 47th Emmy Awards Governor's Ball, September 11, 1994.

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Michael Richards Height" (HTML). CelebHeights.com. 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
  2. ^ Staff Reports (2006-11-27). "Michael Richards: Still Not a Jew". The Los Angeles Jewish Journal. Retrieved 2006-11-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ Michael Richards 'Speaking Freely' transcript. via First Amendment Center, Recorded Feb. 28, 2002, in Aspen, Colorado
  4. ^ Iqbal, Navid (August 8, 2006). Creator of 'Monk' gets behind show's act. Daily Record
  5. ^ Battaglio, Stephen (August 16, 2002). 'Monk': ABC loss was cable's gain. New York Daily News
  6. ^ Brother Michael A. Richards: Renaissance Man, not "Kramer" The Scottish Rite Journal, September 2000, accessed 10 February, 2006.
  7. ^ "The Scottish Rite Journal of Freemasonry", Southern Jurisdiction USA, August 2003, accessed 7 August, 2006
  8. ^ TMZ Staff (2006). ""Kramer's" Racist Tirade -- Caught on Tape" (HTML). In The Zone. TMZ.com. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
  9. ^ "Seinfeld's Richards utters racial taunts during routine" (HTML). CBC arts. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
  10. ^ Washingtonpost.com Washington Post article
  11. ^ ""Seinfeld" star Richards under fire for racial outburst" (HTML). News wire. Reuters. 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
  12. ^ "The Situation Room transcript" (HTML). The Situation Room. CNN. 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-04.
  13. ^ Mariel Concepción (2006). "Comedian Michael "Kramer" Richards Goes Into Racial Tirade, Banned From Laugh Factory" (HTML). News wire. Vibe.com. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
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