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Michael Richards
Michael Richards at the 44th Emmy Awards, August, 1992 (Photo by Alan Light).
Height	6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)

Michael Anthony Richards (born July 24, 1949) is an American actor, three-time Emmy Award winner, writer, producer, and comedian, best known for playing Cosmo Kramer on the television show Seinfeld, which ran from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, on NBC.

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 raised as a Catholic , though his publicist would later refer to Richards as Jewish following the racism controversy. 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; he drove a bus and developed a stand-up comedy act in 1979.

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). 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 Cosmo 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.

Personal life

Richards married former casting director Cathleen Richards and they had a daughter, Sophia. The two were divorced in 1990 and he now 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 is very active in preservation of masonic research, and in his personal life is an avid reader. Richards holds membership in the following lodges: Riviera Lodge No. 780, Culver City–Foshay No. 467 lodge, Southern California Research Lodge. He is also a Life Member of the Los Angeles Scottish Rite Valley and a Life Member of the Scottish Rite Research Society.

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, with Richards playing a bumbling private eye, but the first pilot failed to fester 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.

The lead role in the series Monk was originally written for Richards, but there was concern that audiences, used to seeing him do comedy, might not accept him in the role. 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.

Controversies

The Laugh Factory incident

During a November 17, 2006, stand-up comedy routine at The Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, California, Richards defended himself using insult comedy by responding to a black heckler with racially charged comments, yelling, "Fifty years ago we'd have you upside-down with a fucking fork up your ass" (an apparent lynching reference ), and repeatedly shouting "He's a nigger!" The heckler responded by repeatedly saying "That was uncalled for!", before calling Richards a "fucking cracker-ass motherfucker" and "fucking white boy." The incident ended when Richards walked off of the stage, leaving an employee from The Laugh Factory apologizing afterward. Although Richards performed at The Laugh Factory the following night without incident , the company has since stated that Richards is no longer welcome at the venue.

During a November 20, 2006, satellite appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman (with Jerry Seinfeld as the pre-booked guest), Richards apologized, saying, "For me to be at a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, I'm deeply, deeply sorry... I'm not a racist. That's what's so insane about this." He described his outburst as one of "pure rage." Richards stated to Letterman that he was trying to defuse the hecklers by being more outrageous, but his decision backfired.

According to the two men who were targeted by the outburst, Frank McBride and Kyle Doss, they were merely ordering drinks after arriving late to the comedy club, and not heckling. The two men, represented by Gloria Allred, are planning on suing Richards in the near future. McBride and Doss also recently appeared on The Today Show to discuss their version of the incident. The two men did not accept Richards' apology, with Doss stating “No, I think that apology was totally fake, it was forced. I feel like that was a career move. It wasn’t sincere.”

Comments on Jews

The factual accuracy of part of this article is disputed. The dispute is about Reliability of source claiming Richards is not Jewish. Please help to ensure that disputed statements are reliably sourced. See the relevant discussion on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

On 22 November 2006, reports surfaced that Richards had made controversial comments about Jews during a stand-up routine in April 2006. Richards called a heckler a "fucking Jew" and said "You people are the cause of Jesus dying." Richard's publicist Howard Rubenstein confirmed the report, but added that the remarks were made as part of the act, and stated that Richards is Jewish.

Filmography

• 1980 Fridays TV Series
• 1982 Faerie Tale Theatre (TV) .... King Geoffrey, Vince
• 1982 Young Doctors in Love .... Malamud Callahan
• 1983 Herndon TV Series .... Dr. Herndon P. Stool
• 1984 The House of God .... Dr. Pinkus
• 1985 Transylvania 6-5000 .... Fejos
• 1986 Whoops Apocalypse .... Lacrobat
• 1986 Fresno (mini) TV Series .... 2nd Henchman
• 1987 Jonathan Winters: On the Ledge
• 1989 UHF .... Stanley Spadowski
• 1989 Seinfeld (TV) .... Cosmo Kramer
• 1990 Problem Child .... Martin Beck
• 1993 Coneheads .... Motel Clerk
• 1993 So I Married an Axe Murderer .... Newspaper reporter
• 1994 Airheads .... Doug Beech
• 1995 Unstrung Heroes .... Danny Lidz
• 1996 Ellen's Energy Adventure (uncredited) .... Caveman discovering fire
• 1996 London Suite (TV) .... Mark Ferris
• 1997 Redux Riding Hood (voice) .... The Wolf
• 1997 Trial and Error .... Richard 'Ricky' Rietti
• 2000 The Michael Richards Show TV Series .... Vic Nardozza
• 2000 David Copperfield (TV) .... Mr. Wilkins Micawber
• 2008 Cat Tale (pre-production) (voice) .... Ace

Footnotes

1. "Michael Richards Height" (HTML). CelebHeights.com. 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
2. Staff Reports (2006-11-21). "Michael Richards: 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. Brother Michael A. Richards: Renaissance Man, not "Kramer" The Scottish Rite Journal, September 2000, accessed 10 February, 2006.
5. "The Scottish Rite Journal of Freemasonry", Southern Jurisdiction USA, August 2003, accessed 7 August, 2006
6. Iqbal, Navid (August 8, 2006). Creator of 'Monk' gets behind show's act. Daily Record
7. Battaglio, Stephen (August 16, 2002). 'Monk': ABC loss was cable's gain. New York Daily News
8. ^ "Michael Richards in hot water over racial slant" (HTML). ON DEADLINE Breaking news and must-read stories. USA Today. 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
9. "Michael Richards takes an unfunny pratfall" (HTML). Commentary. MSNBC. 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
10. "Seinfeld's Richards utters racial taunts during routine" (HTML). CBC arts. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
11. Washingtonpost.com Washington Post article
12. TMZ Staff (2006). ""Kramer's" Racist Tirade -- Caught on Tape" (HTML). In The Zone. TMZ.com. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
13. ""Seinfeld" star Richards under fire for racial outburst" (HTML). News wire. Reuters. 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-20.
14. "Michael Richards, Seinfeld's Kramer, stuns audience with racial rampage" (HTML). The Detroit News. 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-22.
15. Mariel Concepción (2006). "Comedian Michael "Kramer" Richards Goes Into Racial Tirade, Banned From Laugh Factory" (HTML). News wire. Vibe.com. Retrieved 2006-11-21.
16. Laugh Factory statement from laughfactory.com
17. "Richards Apologizes for Racial Slurs". Retrieved 2006-11-20.
18. "McBridge and Doss interview". Retrieved 2006-11-22.
19. "Global Jewish News: Did Richards Slur Jews".
20. Schou, Solvej (2006-11-22). "Richards Apologizes, Hires Crisis Expert". the Washington Post. Retrieved 2006-11-22. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

External links

• Michael Richards at IMDb
• Template:Ymovies name
• Official excerpt of the Michael Richards apology on YouTube

• Current events
• 1949 births
• American comedians
• American film actors
• American Freemasons
• American television actors
• Cheers actors
• The Evergreen State College alumni
• Living people
• Miami Vice actors
• People from Los Angeles
• Seinfeld actors
• Shriners
• United States Army soldiers