Michael Richards

Michael Richards (born July 24, 1949 in Culver City, California) is an American actor, FreemasonBrother Michael A. Richards: Renaissance Man, not "Kramer" The Scottish Rite Journal, September 2000, accessed 10 February, 2006., writer, producer, and comedian, best known for playing Cosmo Kramer on the television show Seinfeld.

Education and early life

Richards attended the California Institute of the Arts but received a BFA 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 in the 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; he drove a bus and developed a stand-up comedy act in 1979. Richards got his big TV break nine months later appearing in Billy Crystal's first cable TV special.

He married Cathleen Richards, a former casting director (they divorced in 1990), a union that produced his daughter, Sophia, and now lives in the San Fernando Valley.

Television Career

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). 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. 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 Cosmo Kramer (based on real-life counterpart 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.

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.

After Seinfeld

In 2000, Richards began work on a new series for NBC, his first major project since Seinfeld's high-profile finale. The Michael Richards Show was originally conceived as a comedy/mystery, but the first pilot fared poorly 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 cancelled.

Richards was also slated to star as the title character in the USA series Monk, but pulled out of the project. The role later went to Tony Shalhoub, who would go on to win Emmy awards for his role.

Starting in 2004, he and his fellow Seinfeld castmembers have participated in providing interviews and audio commentaries for the Seinfeld DVDs.

He is slated to appear alongside Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in Rush Hour 3.

References

External links

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Michael Richards

Education and early life

Television Career

After Seinfeld

References

External links