Andy Dick became a star on MTV's The Andy Dick Show, specializing in outrageous and rude humor helped along by his own nerdy and chin-dimpled appearance. (He is sometimes compared to a similar MTV personality, Tom Green.) Dick also starred with Phil Hartman on the hit TV show News Radio, playing the clumsy reporter Matthew Brock. He has played character roles in many films, including Reality Bites (1994, with Janeane Garofalo), The Cable Guy (1996, with Jim Carrey), Inspector Gadget (1999, with Matthew Broderick), Road Trip (2000, with Green), and Employee of the Month (2006, with Jessica Simpson. In 1999 Dick pleaded guilty to cocaine and marijuana possession after crashing his car in Hollywood; he entered an 18-month drug diversion program, then returned to acting in 2001.
Dick is known for his brushes with doomed celebrities: besides co-starring with the late Phil Hartman, he was a rehab partner of comedian Chris Farley and he had been out in Las Vegas with Suddenly Susan co-star David Strickland hours before Strickland committed suicide in 1999.
Comedian Andy Dick is one of the many actors to experiment with a recording career after their star rises high enough to afford them such side projects. Brashly funny and often utilizing a manic personality to get his humor across, Dick was more often infamous for his legendary heavy partying and drug use before an incident with the law helped him change his habits.
Raised in a military family, he knew early on that he was an attention hound and looked to comedy to relieve this feeling. He moved to Chicago to study at the Second City training facility, eventually making friends with actor Ben Stiller, who was developing his own humor and trying to escape the shadow of his famous parents. The two hit it off, and when Stiller had the chance to develop his own Fox television show, Dick was one of the first cast members. Although the show's cutting-edge humor was a ratings bomb, an Emmy Award helped dull the pain when Fox canceled the show.
The various cast members moved on to successful comedy careers, but Dick kept relatively quiet until he was cast in NBC's News Radio. Enjoying his first successful national exposure, Dick also started gathering headlines over his hard partying. Rumors of drug use persisted, but appearances in several high-profile movies helped him avoid bad publicity for a while. But everything came to a head when friend and partying buddy Chris Farley was found dead after an especially heavy binge. Dick was crushed, but the worst was yet to come as costar and friend Phil Hartman was shot to death in 1998 following an argument with his wife. Dick's drug intake grew, and by 1999 he was being investigated after allegedly exposing himself at a Florida concert. Later that same month, he was the last-known person to be seen with David Strickland, an actor who hung himself in a Las Vegas hotel room.
Finally, after News Radio was canceled that summer, he was arrested after driving his car into a telephone pole. He was high on cocaine and marijuana and was sentenced with possession of both as well as other charges relating to the incident. Given a choice of either jail or rehab, the actor began a laborious stint in a clinic where he kicked his habits and emerged clean. After a short-lived series on NBC got him back on his feet, he was asked to start his own show on MTV and soon he had the most popular sketch comedy show the network had in years. With his newfound success, he decided to try his hand at recording an album and put together Andy Dick & the Bitches of the Century in 2002. Five years later he returned with the live album Do Your Shows Always Suck? ~ Bradley Torreano, All Music Guide
Career Highlights: The Cable Guy, The Ben Stiller Show, The Hebrew Hammer
First Major Screen Credit: The Ben Stiller Show (1992)
Biography
Comedian Andy Dick triumphed over personal tragedy, drug and alcohol addiction, and bad press to become one of Hollywood's most unforgettable -- and unconventional -- jokesters. Born on December 21, 1965 in Charleston, SC, Dick is the adopted son of the late Allen and Sue Dick. His father, an officer on a nuclear submarine, carted the family with him all over the world: Dick and his brood lived in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, and Yugoslavia before settling in Illinois. There, at Joliet West High School, Dick learned that the way to keep people's attention was to make them laugh. He began honing his comedic skills by giving a spontaneous standup routine during freshman orientation and eventually won the race for Homecoming King with the slogan, "Don't vote for a jock, vote for A. Dick." After graduation, Dick briefly attended a local college before abandoning school work for the Chicago comedy scene. He studied improv under Del Close and performed at Chicago's celebrated Second City and the ImprovOlympics while appearing in various commercials. By his early twenties, Dick was doing standup or improv every night of the week, but still worked various day jobs to support his then-wife, Ivonne, and their young son.
Dick labored as a delivery guy, a waiter, and as a tour guide before leaving Chicago for Los Angeles in 1988. The move was not an immediate success: Dick's agent dropped him upon arrival, and the comedian could not find a new one. He and Ivonne divorced a year later. Dick continued to perform at coffee houses and open-mike nights when Ben Stiller (whom he met in Chicago) tapped him to appear in the short film Elvis Stories (1989). Three years later, Stiller gave Dick his big break on Fox's The Ben Stiller Show. Performing opposite the likes of Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, and Bob Odenkirk, Dick created the memorable characters Manson Lassie and Skank the sock puppet for the Emmy-winning, but short-lived, sketch comedy program. Dick went on to guest-host Talk Soup and appear on The Nanny, before making a cameo in Stiller's first feature film, Reality Bites (1994), and stealing the Pauly Shore vehicle In the Army Now (1994) from its star. In the meantime, Dick met and romanced artist Lena Sved, with whom he had a son and daughter. In 1995, Dick played the son of agents 86 and 99 on Fox's doomed remake of Get Smart. That same year he had much better luck as the naive, bewildered cub reporter Matthew Brock on NBC's NewsRadio. The sitcom was a critical smash, making Dick a tabloid favorite. During breaks from NewsRadio, he appeared in the independent Bongwater (1998) and opposite Stiller in Permanent Midnight (1998), as well as lent his voice to the villain Nuka in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride (1998).
Meanwhile, Dick instantly made headlines for his frequent drinking and marijuana use, as well as his unique living arrangement: Dick, Sved, and their two children shared a house with Dick's first wife, Ivonne, their son, and her boyfriend. For a time, this unconventional lifestyle appeared to work, more or less. But then, warning bells began to sound for Dick. It began when his Alcoholic Anonymous sponsor and friend since his Chicago days, comedian Chris Farley, died of a drug overdose in December 1997. Then, after a painful drugged-out phone call to The Howard Stern Show during which he discussed his narcotics addiction and disclosed his bisexuality, Dick checked himself into a rehab center. Shortly after his release, Dick's NewsRadio costar and surrogate father Phil Hartman was killed by his wife in a murder-suicide. A year later, Dick's mentor and friend Del Close also passed away. The next day, at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, CO, the obviously inebriated Dick shocked audiences during a reunion of The Ben Stiller Show by accosting Stiller and Garofalo. A couple of weeks later, he went bar hopping in Vegas with actor David Strickland, who tragically killed himself later the same night.
NBC canceled NewsRadio, which could not recover from the death of Phil Hartman. On the heels of the show's last episode, Dick crashed his car into a Hollywood streetlight and then fled the scene, which was filled with drug paraphernalia. He spent the night in jail before being sentenced to weeks of rehab. Dick emerged later that year with an awe-inspiring comeback. He guest starred as David Spade's romantic rival on Just Shoot Me and appeared as himself in Being John Malkovich (1999). He toured with his rock opera, Andy Dick's Circus of Freaks, and recorded voices for the cartoons Hey Arnold!, Dilbert, and King of the Hill.
Dick appeared in several independent pictures and filmed memorable cameos in Road Trip (2000), Loser (2000), and Dude, Where's My Car? (2000). He also reunited with NewsRadio alum Maura Tierney for Spade's prime-time animated series Sammy, before headlining the Family Channel Christmas movie Special Delivery (2000). Tierney then tapped him to appear in her husband Billy Morrissette's directorial debut, Scotland, PA (2001). Dick's biggest coup came in 2001, when MTV let him write, direct, and star in The Andy Dick Show. With such characters as Daphne Aguilera (Christina's mother's friend who lives on the same block) and Zitty McGee (an acne-infested supermodel wannabe), the series became one of the network's highest-rated shows and attracted scores of celebrity guest stars. Rolling Stone dubbed The Andy Dick Show "the funniest thing on TV" and gushed over the first installment of its 2002 season, which opened with an E! True Hollywood Story-like parody of Dick's life entitled, "The Little Angel Clown Who...That Cries."
Never complacent, the drug-free, alcohol-free Dick followed up his show's success with roles opposite Luke Wilson and Will Ferrell in Old School (2003) and on television in Less Than Perfect. Dick contributed a monologue to The Aristocrats (2005), then voiced the character of Boingo in the late 2005 animated feature Hoodwinked, a kind of madcap, CG-animated reworking of the Little Red Riding Hood story. 2006 marked Dick's busiest year yet, as the seemingly inexhaustible actor immersed himself in three major productions. Employee of the Month, a fall 2006 frat-boy comedy starring Dane Cook and Dax Shepard as fellow clerks comically vying for the affections of a sensuous co-worker (Jessica Simpson), finds Dick in an unusually low-key turn (as Lon, one of Cook's buddies). That same year, Dick provided a voice for Queer Duck: The Movie, the feature version of a Showtime animated series about a gay mallard (Jim J. Bullock). In 2006, Dick also agreed to be interviewed for Fired, Annabelle Gurwitch's celebrity-studded documentary about what it means to be sacked in the American economy.
Meanwhile, Dick voiced Mambo in director Paul J. Bolger's Happily N'Ever After (2007), an animated, revisionist satirical version of the Cinderella story; other stars in the cast include George Carlin, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze, Jr..
The tone or style of this article
or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's
guide to writing better articles for suggestions.
Dick was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He was adopted at birth by Allen and Sue Dick. He lived in CT and Pittsburgh, PA. He had a small dog named Moppet. In
1980 he attended Lassiter High School which was being temporarily housed at George
Walton High School in Cobb County, Georgia.
Dick graduated from Joliet West High School (Joliet, Illinois) in 1984. He was in numerous theater productions
during high school, and was elected homecoming king his senior year in the fall of 1983. Even in high school, Dick tended to use
his name as a joke; one day, he dressed in a homemade superhero costume and presented himself
at school as "Super Dick." He's good friends with actor Anthony Rapp, who has known him
since childhood.
He attended Columbia College Chicago and is registered as one of the
school's "distinguished alumni".
In 1999, he provided a voice of Dilbert's assistant on the Dilbert animated
series.
In 2000, he made a cameo role in the motion picture Dude, Where's My Car?.[2] He also appeared in the teenage comedy film Road Trip,
playing a motel clerk.
Dick is the lead singer of his band Andy Dick and the Bitches of the Century. They have appeared together on television, and
released a self-titled album in 2002.
In earlier live shows, Dick had Rodleen Getsic perform as his opening act. Each night
she would play the song she wrote for him called "Fucker".
Recently, Dick wrote and directed his first feature film, Danny Roane: First Time Director. He portrayed "Owen Kronsky"
on the ABC sitcom Less Than
Perfect, until its cancellation on June 6, 2006. He also starred in Jessica
Simpson's music video for her song "A Public Affair".
In 2004, while dining at Swingers Diner in Los Angeles, Dick became a
producer of The 1 Second Film by donating $111.11 to the non-profit collaborative film project. Later that year at the Toronto Film Festival comedian Tom Green became a
producer by donating $120, effectively outbidding Dick, which sparked an ongoing bidding war in which Green and Dick battle for
top billing in the film's credits, in which anyone can be listed for a minimum donation of 1 dollar, and both will be prominently
featured in The 1 Second Film's feature-length making-of documentary which will
accompany the 90 minutes of producer credits.
He provided the voice of Boingo Bunny for the 2006 animated movie Hoodwinked!
Dick is openly bisexual. He says both heterosexual and gay people have told him "C'mon, you know you're just
gay." However, he says: "There is such a thing as bisexual. People want black and white. And I enjoy being bisexual."[3] From 1986 to 1990, he was married to Ivone Kowalczyk, with whom
he has a son, Lucas (b. 1988). He also has a son, Jacob (b. 1994), and a daughter, Meg (b. 1997), from his relationship with Lina
Sved.
He is a supporter of animals rights and PETA. He and his
band, Bitches of the Century, have played for the PETA Animal Emergency Fund.[4]
Public incidents
In 2005, Dick stirred controversy in Edmonton, Alberta, at
Yuk Yuk's comedy club when he dropped his pants and exposed his genitals to the audience. Amid the uproar, he was ushered off the stage and the second night was
cancelled.[5]
On December 2, 2006, he angered an audience at the Improv
Club in Los Angeles by shouting "You're all a bunch of niggers!" following an improvised set with comedian Ian Bagg. This was a direct reference to Michael Richards' use of the same epithet to insult hecklers two weeks earlier.[6] He later issued an apology through his publicist:
"I chose to make a joke about a subject that is not funny, in an attempt to make light of a serious subject, I have offended
a lot of people, and I am sorry for my insensitivity. I wish to apologize to Ian, to the club and its patrons and to anyone who
was hurt or offended by my remark."
On February 2, 2007, he was forcibly removed during an
appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, after repeatedly touching guest
Ivanka Trump without her permission. After rubbing Trump's legs and touching her hair,
Jimmy Kimmel begged him to behave himself. When Dick asked Trump to "give him a big, fat,
sloppy kiss right on the lips" and grabbed her arm, Kimmel called in two security guards. Kimmel and the guards were forced to
literally drag an uncooperative Dick off-set.[7] There is
speculation that the incident was staged. On May 2, 2007, he made
another appearance on Kimmel, which began by showing the clip of him being dragged out of his previous appearance, and
then wheeled out, Hannibal Lecter-style, on a dolly. Although he exchanged some dialogue
and playful "touching" with Kimmel's other guest, Danica Patrick, the show passed without
incident.
In August 2007, Dick was cited by Columbus, Ohio
police for urinating on a sidewalk and a building. During his weekend in Columbus he was reported to be intoxicated during his
stand up performances and groped patrons at a comedy club. Upon his return to Los Angeles, LA County deputies were called to his
residence to respond to a complaint that Dick was throwing beer bottles into his neighbor's yard. On August 29, 2007 Dick slapped a reporter in the face outside a Los Angeles
nightclub. [8]
Drug use
On May 15, 1999, Dick drove his car into a telephone pole in Hollywood. He was charged
with possession of cocaine, possession of marijuana,
possession of drug paraphernalia, driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs and hit-and-run driving. He later pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession and two other misdemeanor charges: marijuana possession and possession of "a smoking device." After Dick completed an
18-month drug diversion program, a judge dismissed the felony and misdemeanor drug charges against him.
Comedian and actor Jon Lovitz has long blamed Dick for reintroducing Phil Hartman's wife Brynn to cocaine (after 10 years of
sobriety) just five months before she would murder her husband
and commit suicide. On July 11, 2007 Dick had a run-in with Lovitz at the Laugh Factory. The club's owner,
Jamie Masada, said that Lovitz picked Dick up by the head and smashed him into the bar. Dick had on a previous occasion said to
Lovitz he would "put the 'Phil Hartman hex' on you - you’re the next one to die." Lovitz told
Page Six, "All the comedians are glad I did it because this guy is an asshole."[12]
Dick refuted Lovitz's story on July 25, 2007, on
Tom Green Live, saying that Masada was not there to witness the incident, and that
in fact he had never even met Masada. Dick said the confrontation happened in the outer lobby, and that the most Lovitz did was
grab him by the lapel and throw him against the wall. Lovitz confirmed this version on Larry
King Live, adding that he had thrown Dick into a table.
