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Name: Kathy Griffin
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Date of Birth:
November 04, 1960
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Place of Birth:
Oak Park, Illinois, USA
Mini-bio:
The acerbic, razor-tongued, take-no-prisoners comedian Kathy Griffin has built a career for herself -- as an actress and a standup performer -- around the schtick of being permanently under-respected ... read moreby everyone (as the title of her TV series, My Life on the D List, suggests), and fighting back with her claws extended. Griffin is notorious for mercilessly skewering and taking potshots at worthy targets (particularly fellow celebrities and comedians) through her comedy, and has built a considerable career out of doing so.Born in Oak Park, IL, and raised in the Chicago area, to an electronics store manager father and a hospital administrator mother, Griffin reportedly wanted to become an actress from the age of five and frequently improvised elaborate stage and comedy acts for her family. Griffin attended Oak Park High School, and -- after graduation -- studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Institute in Southern California. In 1988, the then-28-year-old joined the now-infamous sketch comedy troupe the Groundlings, alongside such stars-to-be as Lisa Kudrow, Will Ferrell, and Julia Sweeney, where she evinced an extraordinary gift for improvisatory work. After the Groundlings, Griffin developed and honed a solo standup act, which -- as she later recalled -- opened numerous doors for her as an actress, including a turn as Lucy in the Bobcat Goldthwait vehicle Shakes the Clown (1992), a brief cameo in Pulp Fiction, and a small multi-episode role on Seinfeld. Griffin was particularly memorable in the latter, as Sally Weaver, the standup comedian whose act consists of trashing Jerry Seinfeld by revealing embarrassing details from his personal life. A cameo as herself in the SNL big-screen vehicle It's Pat (1994) reunited Griffin with fellow Groundling Sweeney. Beginning in 1996, Griffin parlayed her comic flair and small-screen experience into a standing role in the hit NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan, starring Brooke Shields; that program cast Griffin as Vicki Groener, magazine columnist Shields' not-so-subtly envious, über-saucy colleague. The program scored with viewers and ran for three seasons. Meanwhile, Griffin continued her big-screen roles, with turns in the 1995 omnibus picture Four Rooms (as Betty), the 1996 Ben Stiller-directed The Cable Guy (as Jim Carrey's mother), and Muppets from Space (1999), as an armed guard. Additional guest contributions on a myriad of sitcoms during the '90s and 2000s gave an added charge to the respective series casts.Griffin also starred in the aforementioned cable series Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D List, which began airing on the Bravo network in 2004. The comically charged reality show cast Griffin as herself, battling through the experiences of everyday life -- such as training a new puppy and teaching a class as The Learning Annex. The program allegedly began with a prime-time slot on NBC, but was ankled by the network following production of the pilot, and then picked up by Bravo. Off camera, Griffin reportedly harbors a jet-black sense of humor and an ongoing fascination with true crime, particularly serial killers. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
Kathy Griffin mini-bio: Griffin began performing in the early 1980s with the Los Angeles improv
comedy troupe, The Groundlings. She went on to perform stand-up comedy and
teamed with fellow Groundlings alum Janeane Garofalo on the comedy act
"Hot Cup of Talk"[1], later the title of Griffin's 1998 solo HBO special.
She did some acting, breaking into film with the supporting role of Connie
in the horror movie The Unborn (1991), starring Brooke Adams.
Griffin gradually amassed such early TV and film credits as a role in
comedian Julie Brown's Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful (1992), an HBO parody
of the backstage film Truth or Dare (1991); two appearances as the
character Susan Klein on NBC's The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, her TV sitcom
debut; fellow comic Bob Goldthwait's movie Shakes the Clown (1992); and an
episode of ABC's divorce-attorney series Civil Wars, Griffin's
dramatic-series debut.
After starring in an HBO Half Hour Comedy Special, Griffin's first
consistent public exposure came in 1996, when she was cast as the acerbic
colleague of Brooke Shields' title character on the NBC sitcom Suddenly
Susan. In 1998, Griffin starred in her first one-hour special, HBO's Kathy
Griffin: A Hot Cup of Talk. She honed a comedy and television career that
poked fun at her relatively modest place in the Hollywood hierarchy in a
self-deprecating manner. She frequently appears in such self-consciously
tacky projects as the reality show competition Celebrity Mole Hawaii — in
which she won the 2003 edition after undergoing such experiences as
walking over hot lava with her bare feet. She identifies her victory as
the moment she became a "D-list" celebrity.
Griffin also has a secondary career in voiceover work, and has been
featured on a variety of projects such as the Dilbert animated series and
one of the Spider-Man animated series.
In 2005, Griffin starred in her solo reality show Kathy Griffin: My Life
on the D-List, on the cable network Bravo. The show also featured
then-husband Matt Moline, her best friends, Dennis Hensley and Tony
Tripoli, her parents, her dogs and her personal assistant Jessica. The
second-season premiered on June 6, 2006. The first season of the program
was nominated for a 2006 Primetime Emmy award for Outstanding Reality
Program, non-competition. It has been renewed for a third season which is
set to air June 6th, 2007.
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