Wayne Brady

Wayne Brady
Brady at the World of Color premiere, 2010
Born	Wayne Alphonso Brady (1972-06-02) June 2, 1972 Columbus, Georgia, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Actor, television personality, comedian, singer, presenter, game show host
Years active	1990–present
Spouse(s)	Diana Lasso (1993–1995) Mandie Taketa (1999–2008)
Website	waynebrady.com

Wayne Alphonso Brady (born June 2, 1972) is an American actor, singer, comedian and television personality, known for his work as a regular on the American version of the improvisational comedy television series Whose Line Is It Anyway?. He was the host of the daytime talk show The Wayne Brady Show, the original host of Fox's Don't Forget the Lyrics!, and has hosted Let's Make a Deal since its 2009 revival.

Early life

Brady was born in Columbus, Georgia to West Indian parents, and moved to Orlando, Florida as a young child to live with his grandmother and aunt. Brady refers to his grandmother, Valerie Petersen, as his "mom," since she raised him. Brady is second cousin to professional footballer Jozy Altidore who currently plays for Sunderland FC in the English Premier League. At 16, Brady started performing in community theater and at the Orlando improv troupe SAK Comedy Lab, where he first started developing his improv skills. He attended Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, Florida, where he graduated in 1989. In 1990, he enrolled at the University of Miami. In 1996, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he continued developing his acting skills.

Career

Brady's career began as one of the improvisational theater performers in the original (British) version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, along with Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, and host Clive Anderson in 1998 when the last season was filmed in Hollywood, after which he became a regular on the American version, hosted by Drew Carey, which was his first Stateside television exposure. In 2003, Brady won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety, Musical or Comedy Series for his work on the show, the only person to win the award for a television series, as opposed to a special, since Dana Carvey in 1993.

He went on to star in his own ABC variety show in 2001 called The Wayne Brady Show, and a daytime talk show of the same name in 2002, which lasted two seasons and won four Daytime Emmy Awards, two of which went to Brady for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Brady guest-starred on The Drew Carey Show in 1999 and 2000 to take part in "Drew Live" and "Drew Live II". On the show, Brady played several games taken from Whose Line Is It Anyway? for the two episodes with other characters.

In 2004, Brady joined the Broadway revival of Chicago, playing the role of lawyer Billy Flynn. He appeared briefly in the final episode of the 2004 season of the comedy Reno 911!. He guest starred on the Sci Fi Channel's hit series show Stargate SG-1 as Trelak, the first-prime of the Goa'uld System Lord, Ares. He made an appearance on Chappelle's Show, poking fun at his squeaky clean persona.

Brady wrote and sang the theme song for Disney's animated series The Weekenders. In 2005, he sang and recorded Jim Brickman's original Disney song "Beautiful" (a cover of All-4-One's 2002 hit "Beautiful As You") and its Christmas version.

In 2006, Brady became the host of TV Land's That's What I'm Talking About, a talk show discussing the role of African-Americans in the entertainment industry. From August 29 – September 29, 2006, Brady hosted the Fox show Celebrity Duets.

On November 27, 2006, he made a guest appearance on the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, playing James, the gay brother of Neil Patrick Harris's character Barney. His character conflicts with Barney due to his choice to marry and adopt a baby. Brady returned to the show in 2007 in the episode "The Yips", in which he is shown to be indirectly responsible for Barney's current superconfident personality, as well as in 2010's "Cleaning House" episode. He had also appeared as a guest star for the MTV show Nick Cannon's Wild 'N Out. Brady also helps with the Adult Swim TV show Robot Chicken.

Brady has also gone "north-of-the-border" and guest starred in Colin Mochrie's CBC comedy, Getting Along Famously. He has also appeared on the episode "You Don't Know Jack" on the television show Dirt and also guest starred on the show 30 Rock, where he played the role of Steven Black, Liz Lemon's date for The Source Awards. Steven and Liz's relationship quickly ended when they discovered they had nothing in common and Liz accidentally shot him in the buttocks.

Brady was the co-host of the short-lived VH1 show "Vinyl Justice" in 1998. In 2007, ABC Family premiered the movie called "The List". The List is about a man who proposes to his girlfriend. When she says no, he begins to make a list of qualities he believes his "Perfect Woman" should have. He starred in Flirt, a comedy pilot developed for The CW Television Network, which if it had been picked up would have aired in the 2006-07 television season.

Brady guest starred as Julius Rock's gifted younger brother, Louis, in the television series, Everybody Hates Chris, and hosted a singing game show called Don't Forget the Lyrics! on Fox until its cancellation in June 2009. He also performs "Wayne Brady: Making $%!^ up" at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada four nights a week. He was also on two episodes of Kevin Hill. Brady's debut album was released on September 16, 2008. The song "A Change is Gonna Come", a cover of the popular 1964 single by Sam Cooke, earned Brady a Grammy nomination in the Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance category.

Brady started hosting an updated version of the game show Let's Make a Deal for CBS in October 2009, which taped at the Tropicana Resort & Casino in Las Vegas and currently tapes in Los Angeles. The show replaced the soap opera Guiding Light, which ended its long-time run. The original host of Let's Make a Deal was Monty Hall, who serves as consultant for the new show. Drew Carey currently hosts The Price Is Right, and thus, both game shows in the CBS daytime lineup (as of May 2013) hold the distinction of being hosted by an alumnus of Whose Line Is It Anyway?.

Brady was the guest host on the May 3, 2010 episode of WWE Raw, where he was involved in an in-ring segment with Edge and Randy Orton, and eventually getting RKO'd by Orton. Later that year, in August, Brady played the role of Tom Collins in a staged production of Rent at the Hollywood Bowl. The production was directed by Neil Patrick Harris.

Brady, together with Jonathan Mangum performed in two episodes of Fast and Loose, a new improvisational series on BBC2 hosted by Hugh Dennis, in January 2011. Then, along with Holly Robinson Peete, he co-hosted the 42nd annual NAACP Image Awards on March 4, 2011.

On May 3 he appeared on Dancing With The Stars as the lead performer in a tribute to James Brown celebrating what would have been Brown's 78th birthday in the Macy's Stars of Dance segment. He has also been a special guest of Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza on GSN, appearing each time with Let's Make a Deal announcer Jonathan Mangum.

Brady made a cameo in the 2011 song "Dedication to my Ex (miss that)" by Lloyd featuring Lil Wayne and Andre 3000, narrating Lil Wayne's section of the song, and he appeared as a special guest star in the March 14, 2012 episode of the TV series Psych along with Greg Grunberg and Mike "The Miz" Mizanin.

Brady also starred in the 2012 ABC improvisational comedy series Trust Us with Your Life, and returned for the revival of Whose Line Is It Anyway? in the Summer of 2013.

Brady guest starred as Don in a Phineas and Ferb episode, "Where's Pinky?" on June 7, 2013.

Personal life

In 2007, Brady became an official supporter of Ronald McDonald House Charities and is a member of their celebrity board, called the Friends of RMHC.

Brady has been married twice. His first marriage was to Diana Lasso on December 31, 1993. They were divorced on September 21, 1995. His second marriage was to dancer Mandie Taketa on April 3, 1999. They have one child together, a daughter named Maile Masako Brady, born on February 3, 2003. Brady and Taketa separated on April 5, 2006 and Taketa filed for divorce on July 2, 2007.

Politics

In 2013, Bill Maher complained that Barack Obama was "not black enough", like Wayne Brady. Brady took issue with this statement, suggesting that Maher should "be careful when you make statements like that, because it will allow his viewers to make the same stereotypical assumptions about black people.".

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1990	Superboy	John	Episode: "The Sons of Icarus"
1993	I'll Fly Away	Damon	2 episodes
1993	In the Heat of the Night	Henry Ulmer	"Hatton's Turn" Parts 1 & 2
1997–99	Kwik Witz	Himself
1998	Whose Line Is It Anyway?	Himself	Series 10; British version
1998–2006, 2013–present	Whose Line Is It Anyway?	Himself	Starring seasons 2–7, 9–; recurring seasons 1 & 8 Also executive producer (season 9–); American version
1999, 2000	The Drew Carey Show	Himself	2 episodes
2000	Batman Beyond	Micron	"The Call" Parts 1 & 2
2000	Geppetto	The Magician	TV movie
2002	Miss America	Himself, host
2004	Clifford's Really Big Movie	Shackelford
2004	Going to the Mat	Mason Wyatt
2004	Chappelle's Show	Himself	2 episodes
2005	Roll Bounce	D.J. Johnny Feelgood
2005	Stargate SG-1	Trelak	Episode: "It's Good to be King"
2006/08	Everybody Hates Chris	Louis	2 episodes
2006	Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild	Reeko	Video
2006	Crossover	Vaughn
2006	Shorty McShorts' Shorts	Cameron	Voice; 3 episodes
2006–2014	How I Met Your Mother	James Stinson	13 episodes
2007	The List	Lewis
2007	30 Rock	Steven Black	Episode: "The Source Awards"
2007	Dirt	Henchman	Episode: "You Don't Know Jack"
2008	The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon	Sparx
2007–09	Don't Forget the Lyrics!	Himself, host
2009–present	Let's Make a Deal	Himself, host
2011	Fast and Loose	Himself, performer
2011	Are We There Yet?	Devin	Episode: "The Man and the Bragging Snafu Episode"
2011	Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza	Himself, guest panelist
2012–13	American Dad	Cuba Gooding Jr. / Tungee	Voice; 3 episodes
2012	Foodfight!	Daredevil Dan	Voice
2012	Trust Us with Your Life		2 episodes
2012	Psych	Hilton Fox
2013	Sofia the First	Clover the Rabbit	Voice; 7 episodes
2013	So You Think You Can Dance	Himself, guest judge	2 episodes
2013	Scooby-Doo! Stage Fright	Brik Pimlento
2014	Hollywood Game Night	Himself
2014	So You Think You Can Dance	Himself	Guest Judge

Discography

Albums

Year	Album details	Chart Positions
		US	US R&B	US Heat
2008	A Long Time Coming Released: September 16, 2008 Label: Peak/Concord Music	157	20	2
2011	Radio Wayne Released: May 31, 2011 Label: Walt Disney	—	—	—

Singles

• 2000
  • "The Weekenders" Theme Song
• 2004
  • "Unsung Heroes"
  • "Between" – Wayne Brady with The Sesame Street Muppets
• 2005
  • "Beautiful" – Wayne Brady, accompanied on piano by songwriter Jim Brickman
  • "Don't Stop" – Jamie Jones featuring Wayne Brady and William Carthright
• 2008
  • "Ordinary"
• 2009
  • "F.W.B."
• 2013
  • "Whistle While I Work it" – Chester See featuring Tobuscus with Wayne Brady

References

Notes

External links

• Official website
• Wayne Brady at IMDb
• Wayne Brady at AllMovie
• Training Day Parody sketch from Chappelle's Show
• Las Vegas Review Journal: The Brady Hunch, May 18, 2007
• Questions and Answers with Wayne Brady Las Vegas Sun, April 11, 2007
• Wayne Brady's 'Lyric'-al TV Return Interview – AOL Television
• Wayne Brady on Tom Green Live, 23 May 2007