Jump to content

Michael Richards: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
[pending revision][pending revision]
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Lefteh (talk | contribs)
239 edits
No edit summary
Rador (talk | contribs)
80 edits
m
Line 50: Line 50:
On [[November 17]], [[2006]] Richards was videotaped doing standup at [[The Laugh Factory]], a comedy club. He repeatedly used the word ''[[nigger]]'' to refer to a black man who claimed he was playfully heckling Richards. Richards shouted, "Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass. You can talk. You can talk. You're brave now, motherfucker." Then Richards pointed accusingly at the [[heckler]], yelling, "Throw his ass out. He's a nigger! He's a nigger! He's a nigger! A nigger, look, there's a nigger!"
On [[November 17]], [[2006]] Richards was videotaped doing standup at [[The Laugh Factory]], a comedy club. He repeatedly used the word ''[[nigger]]'' to refer to a black man who claimed he was playfully heckling Richards. Richards shouted, "Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass. You can talk. You can talk. You're brave now, motherfucker." Then Richards pointed accusingly at the [[heckler]], yelling, "Throw his ass out. He's a nigger! He's a nigger! He's a nigger! A nigger, look, there's a nigger!"


When one of the heckler's companions responded by shouting, "That's un-fucking called for, ain't necessary," the comic responded, "It was uncalled for for you to interrupt my ass." The heckler continued to shout, now employing his own racial epithets in calling Richards a ''[[cracker (pejorative)|cracker]]'' and a "fucking white boy", that Richards's words were uncalled for, prompting Richards to respond, "Well, you interrupted me, pal. That's what happens when you interrupt the white man". <ref>http://www.tmz.com/2006/11/20/kramers-racist-tirade-caught-on-tape/</ref>
When one of the heckler's companions responded by shouting, "That's un-fucking called for, ain't necessary." the comic responded, "It was uncalled for for you to interrupt my ass." The heckler continued to shout, now employing his own racial epithets in calling Richards a ''[[cracker (pejorative)|cracker]]'' and a "fucking white boy", that Richards's words were uncalled for, prompting Richards to respond, "Well, you interrupted me, pal. That's what happens when you interrupt the white man". <ref>http://www.tmz.com/2006/11/20/kramers-racist-tirade-caught-on-tape/</ref>


When several members of the audience expressed their distaste at Richards's comments and began to leave, Richards responded with, "They're going to arrest me for calling a black man a nigger."
When several members of the audience expressed their distaste at Richards's comments and began to leave, Richards responded with, "They're going to arrest me for calling a black man a nigger."

Revision as of 22:44, 20 November 2006

Michael Richards
Michael Richards at the 44th Emmy Awards, August, 1992, photo by Alan Light
Height6 ft 3 in (191 cm) [1]

Michael A. Richards (born July 24, 1949 in Culver City, California) is an American actor, three-time Emmy Award winner, writer, producer, and comedian, best known for playing Cosmo Kramer on the television show Seinfeld.

Education and personal life

Richards 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. Richards got his big TV break nine months later appearing in Billy Crystal's first cable TV special.

Richards married former casting director Cathleen Richards and they had a daughter, Sophia. The two were divorced in 1990 and he now resides in the San Fernando Valley.

Richards is also a Freemason[2][3].

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 (it was later found out that Richards was actually 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 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. 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.

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 three Emmy awards, two SAG awards, and a Golden Globe for his role.

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

Controversy

On November 17, 2006 Richards was videotaped doing standup at The Laugh Factory, a comedy club. He repeatedly used the word nigger to refer to a black man who claimed he was playfully heckling Richards. Richards shouted, "Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass. You can talk. You can talk. You're brave now, motherfucker." Then Richards pointed accusingly at the heckler, yelling, "Throw his ass out. He's a nigger! He's a nigger! He's a nigger! A nigger, look, there's a nigger!"

When one of the heckler's companions responded by shouting, "That's un-fucking called for, ain't necessary." the comic responded, "It was uncalled for for you to interrupt my ass." The heckler continued to shout, now employing his own racial epithets in calling Richards a cracker and a "fucking white boy", that Richards's words were uncalled for, prompting Richards to respond, "Well, you interrupted me, pal. That's what happens when you interrupt the white man". [4]

When several members of the audience expressed their distaste at Richards's comments and began to leave, Richards responded with, "They're going to arrest me for calling a black man a nigger."

Before news of the exchange became widespread, Richards performed the next night at the club without incident. Eventually, word the original exchange reached news outlets, and when asked about it, Richards claimed to have made amends, stating that he felt sorry about his behavior. How exactly he made amends is unknown, as he refused to speak about the incident on camera.[5]

The video of the incident was soon posted by the celebrity gossip website, TMZ.com.

Filmography

Faye Dunaway and Michael Richards at the 47th Emmy Awards Governor's Ball, September 11, 1994, photo by Alan Light

References

  1. ^ http://www.celebheights.com/s/Michael-Richards-1324.html
  2. ^ Brother Michael A. Richards: Renaissance Man, not "Kramer" The Scottish Rite Journal, September 2000, accessed 10 February, 2006.
  3. ^ "The Scottish Rite Journal of Freemasonry", Southern Jursidiction USA, August 2003, accessed 7 August, 2006
  4. ^ http://www.tmz.com/2006/11/20/kramers-racist-tirade-caught-on-tape/
  5. ^ 'Kramer' actor spews racial slurs at comedy club, Globe and Mail, November 20, 2006.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Michael Richards.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Michael_Richards&oldid=89104603"