Chelsea Handler

Chelsea Handler
Handler at LA Direct Magazine's "Remember to Give" Holiday Party 2008
Born	Chelsea Jane Handler February 25, 1975 (1975-02-25) (age 34) Livingston, New Jersey, US
Occupation	Actress, author, comedian
Years active	1996 - present
Official website

Chelsea Jane Handler (born February 25,^[1] 1975)^[2] is an American stand-up comedian, humorist, television host, actress, and best-selling author. She has her own late night talk show Chelsea Lately on the E! Cable Television Network. In 2009 she won a Bravo A-List Award. She also has her own column in Cosmopolitan and the UK celebrity magazine Now Magazine.

Comedic Style

Handler's subtle, almost non-existent approach to humour has been lauded by critics who claim "she's all edge". Handler has acknowledged her technique, saying "it's not so much humor as it is comments that aren't actually funny".^[3]

Early life

Handler was born in the suburban town of Livingston, New Jersey.^[4] The youngest of six children, she was raised Jewish by her Mormon mother and Jewish father.^[4] Handler has said that while growing up, she felt like an outsider, telling a reporter, "We lived in this nice Jewish neighborhood...Everyone had Mercedes and Jaguars, and I was going to school in a Pinto."^[5]

Career

Performances

Handler has performed nationwide as a stand-up comedian, appeared as a regular on the Oxygen Network series Girls Behaving Badly and on other shows, including Weekends at the D.L., The Bernie Mac Show, My Wife and Kids, and The Practice. She is a regular commentator on E! and Scarborough Country as well as a correspondent on The Tonight Show. She hosted the first episode of the reality TV show On the Lot, but quit before the second one was aired, as she later said, "because I smelled the disaster happening before it did."^[6] Chelsea Handler hosted "The Chelsea Handler Show" in April 2006, which lasted two seasons. She was a guest on Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld and The View; she co-hosted The View on August 2, 2007, and again on September 5, 2008 — and hosts her own late night talk show on E! titled Chelsea Lately. On January 25, 2009, Handler was on the CBS gameshow Million Dollar Password as one of the celebrity players. On April 15, 2009, Handler won the 2009 Bravo A-List Award for "A-List Funny".

Books

Handler has authored two books on the New York Times Best Seller List. Handler wrote My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands (ISBN 1582346186 ) as her memoir. Handler also wrote Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (ISBN 0061173398), a collection of humorous essays. Are You There, Vodka hit the NYTimes non-fiction best seller list on May 11, 2008;^[7] it has already had a print run of over 350,000.^[8]Her third book titled Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, which is set for release on March 9, 2010.^[9]

Comedy Central's Hour Stand-Up Comedy Tour

In 2007, Handler performed with the Hour Stand-Up Comedy Tour across the U.S.. Her stand-up has been televised on Vh1's Love Lounge, Comedy Central's Premium Blend, and HBO's broadcast of the Aspen Comedy Festival. Chelsea Handler was the host of the Fox show "On The Lot." The show, produced by Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett, is a competition for aspiring filmmakers who are vying for a chance at stardom. She was replaced after one episode by former Robin & Company entertainment anchor, Adrianna Costa.

Chelsea Lately

Handler as the Grand Marshal of Los Angeles LGBT Pride festival in West Hollywood, California in June 2009.

In July 2007, Handler began starring on her own half-hour late-night comedy series on E! titled Chelsea Lately. This series places Handler against a slew of male-dominated talk shows, and adding a considerable amount of sarcasm and ridicule to the format. On the show's 100th episode, Chelsea revealed to viewers that E! had picked up Chelsea Lately for another 150 episodes.^[10] The show has proved a hit and averaged more than a half-million viewers since its premiere (much more than the average for a late night cable program) and has clips on Youtube with more than a million views. All this success is despite the fact that Handler's guests often are not A-list celebrities. In a 2008 interview Handler said, "The worse the guests are, the more pathetic they are, the funnier the show is."^[11] The New York Times reported that Chelsea Lately has been renewed by E! to run until December 2009;^[12] Handler received another contract extension in March 2009 to keep Chelsea Lately on the air through 2012.^[13]

In The Motherhood

Since 2007, Handler has appeared in the Internet based program In the Motherhood with Leah Remini and (since January 2008) Jenny McCarthy. The comedic series is "about moms, by moms and for moms". On September 8, 2008, it was announced ABC would be turning In The Motherhood into a series starring Jessica St. Clair, Megan Mullaly, and Cheryl Hines.^[14][15] Handler decided to drop out of the project due to her scheduling commitments to her show Chelsea Lately.

Personal life

Chelsea has confirmed she is dating Ted Harbert who, as the CEO of Comcast Entertainment Group, oversees E! Entertainment Television.^[16] Handler reportedly broke up with Harbert recently after living together for three years but has since cleared up rumours on Chelsea Lately, poking fun at tabloids while insisting to still be with her 'live-in lover'.^[17] On the 29 January 2008 episode of Chelsea Lately she claimed she was asked to do season six of the hit television series Dancing with the Stars but declined. Handler was ranked #91 on the 2009 Maxim Hot 100. She is close friends with Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy.

Handler appeared on one of two covers of December 2009 edition of Playboy Magazine, the alternate cover featuring Dancing with the Stars semifinalist and model Joanna Krupa. Inside the magazine Handler posed for a non-nude pictorial.

Filmography

• The Chelsea Handler Show - herself (April 21, 2006 - September 9, 2006)
• Chelsea Lately - herself (July 16, 2007 - present)
• Comedy Central Presents - Herself (standup)
• In The MotherHood - Heather (10 episodes, 2007-2008)
• Girls Behaving Badly
• The Bernie Mac Show
• Dirty Famous - Missy Kelin (1 episode, 2005,unsold pilot)
• The Practice
• Spy TV
• My Wife and Kids - Nurse Amy
• Weekends at the D.L.
• Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Chelsea Handler

• Official site
• Chelsea Handler at the Internet Movie Database
• In the Motherhood official website
• Q&A Interview, New York Times Magazine, December 16, 2007
• Review of "Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea"