Tim Meadows

actor; comedian

Personal Information

Born Tim Meadows in 1961, in Highland Park, MI; married Michelle, 1997; children: one.
Education: Wayne State University.

Career

Second City, improv comedy troupe; television: Saturday Night Live, 1991-00; The Michael Richards Show, 2000; films: Coneheads, 1993; Wayne's World 2, 1993; It's Pat, 1994; The Ladies Man, 2000.

Life's Work

His wife, Michelle, described him to People Weekly as "the perfect boy to bring home to meet your mother." His audiences on Saturday Night Live regularly found Tim Meadows hilarious. His nearly ten years on the show made him, along with Kevin Nealon and Phil Hartman, one of the longest-running cast members in the show's 25-year history. However, in 2000, Meadows left the protective shield of SNL to forge a new career on television and in films, hoping his appreciative audiences would follow him. He began with a starring role in The Ladies Man as well as a supporting role on The Michael Richards Show.

Meadows was born in Highland Park, Michigan, and raised in Detroit. He was the youngest of five children born to Lathon, a janitor, and Mardell, a nurse's assistant. Times were tough, and his family often required the assistance of welfare to make ends meet. The riots in the late 1960s when opposition to the war in Vietnam was growing and the streets were full of protestors made a powerful impression on Meadows as a child. "I remember guys shooting guns in the air and cops beating up guys," he told People Weekly. Comedy and the theater became a refuge through the bad times for Meadows. Television was his escape from the all-too-real world around him. His favorites were Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor and his favorite show was SNL. During high school, Meadows worked in a liquor store and the men who came in late at night asking for Courvoisier became the inspiration for his Leon Phelps character, the Courvoisier-drinking host of a talk show entitled, "The Ladies Man."

After Meadows graduated from Pershing High School in Detroit, he attended Wayne State University, studying radio and television broadcasting. He also joined a local improv group. In 1986 he moved to Chicago and got work with the Second City, a top improvisational comedy troupe. During his five years in Chicago, he established a loyal following.

In 1991 Lorne Michaels, the producer of Saturday Night Live, hired Meadows. "Tim was really understated," Michaels told People Weekly, and "brilliant in a quiet kind of way." He was the only African American in the cast during most of his years at SNL, but his roles were never stereotyped. Meadows told People Weekly that he "wasn't going to do anything that I'd regret later." Two years after his debut, he was nominated for an Emmy Award as part of the show's writing team. Meadows played many characters on SNL. In addition to the popular Leon Phelps, he played Lionel Osbourne, host of the public affairs show "Perspectives;" DJ Chris "Champagne" Garnet, host of "The Quiet Storm;" and Pimpin' Kyle, sidekick on "Pimp Chat." He was also a popular impersonator, portraying such well-known personalities as Michael Jackson, Don King, Johnny Cochran, Oprah Winfrey, and the late Sammy Davis, Jr.

Meadows left SNL in 2000 for a starring role in The Ladies Man and a supporting role on The Michael Richards Show. He knew he was taking a gamble, both on the sitcom and on the movie. But the actor and comic was philosophical. "I've been lucky," he told People Weekly, "but the movie could bomb, the television show could be canceled, and I could be out looking for work in two months."

Indeed, The Ladies Man, which opened in October of 2000, did not receive enthusiastic reviews. The character of Leon Phelps, is a stuck-in-the-1970s dude who lisps, swills Courvoisier, and gives truly obnoxious love advice. Critics generally felt that Leon's naughty humor was better suited to the small screen. Robert Koehler of Variety noted that the character's lisp is "funny in TV sketch form but grows wearisome after about 20 minutes."

Meadows has also appeared in the Coneheads (1993) and Wayne's World 2 (1993). In addition to writing numerous SNL sketches and the screenplay for The Ladies Man, Meadows also wrote the 1998 television special Saturday Night Live Remembers Chris Farley. Farley, who also joined SNL in the early 1990s, was a close friend to Meadows, and his death from a drug overdose affected the comedian deeply--so much so that he went into therapy.

Former SNL cast member Dana Carvey told People Weekly, "The headline on Tim should be 'The Nicest Guy in Show Business.'" Meadows and his wife Michelle, who were married in 1997, live in Venice, California, and have one child.

Works

Selected filmography

• Television
• Saturday Night Live, 1991-2000.
• The Michael Richards Show, 2000.
• Films
• Coneheads, 1993.
• Wayne's World 2, 1993.
• It's Pat, 1994.
• The Ladies Man, 2000.

Further Reading

Books

• Contemporary Theatre, Film and Television, vol. 26, Gale, 2000.

Periodicals

• Entertainment Weekly, October 20, 2000.
• Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service, October 12, 2000.
• People Weekly, November 6, 2000.
• Variety, October 9, 2000.

Online

• http://www.imdb.com.

— Corinne J. Naden

• Born: Feb 05, 1961 in Highland Park, Michigan
• Occupation: Actor, Writer
• Active: '90s-2000s
• Major Genres: Comedy
• Career Highlights: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Mean Girls, The Cookout
• First Major Screen Credit: Saturday Night Live: Season 19 (1993)

Biography

One of the longest-running cast member in the history of Saturday Night Live, easygoing funnyman Tim Meadows crafted some of the series' most enduring characters in his nine-year stint on the popular late-night comedy staple. Whether sipping Courvoisier as self-proclaimed Ladies' Man Leon Phelps or posing clueless questions to irritable guests as early morning talk show host Lionel Osborne, Meadows and his memorable collection of characters endured even during the more critically panned years of SNL and proved an important component of keeping the show on its feet during those dark days.

Born in Highland Park, MI, and raised in Detroit, Meadows studied radio and television broadcasting at Wayne State University before performing improvisational comedy at the Soup Kitchen Saloon in nearby Ferndale. Quickly finding his stride on-stage, Meadows relocated to Chicago where he would join the ImprovOlympia team and later become associated with the Second City troupe. Gaining a loyal following during his three-year stint with the legendary comedy troupe, Meadows was soon courted by SNL producer Lorne Michaels and in 1991, he achieved the dreams of comics nationwide when he joined the SNL cast as a featured player. Nominated for an Emmy the same month he made the transition to cast member status two years later, Meadows was fired from the show in 1994 only to be hired back at the insistence of Michaels. Although he did little film or television work during his SNL years, Meadows prepared for his own departure from the series by appearing in the features of such former cast members as Dan Aykroyd (Coneheads [1993]), Mike Myers and Dana Carvey (Wayne's World 2 [also 1993]), and Julia Sweeney (It's Pat [1994]). Predictably, Meadows' segue into his post-SNL career began with the quickly dismissed Ladies Man feature, though he continued to grace the small screen with roles in such sitcoms as The Michael Richards Show and Leap of Faith.

As the 2000's continued, Meadows began to carve out a niche for himself with memorable and funny supporting roles in a variety of comedies like The Even Stevens Movie, The Benchwarmers, and, quite notably, as the Carpal Tunnel suffering high school principle in 2004's Mean Girls. In 2007, he appeared as fictional rock star Dewey Cox's drummer in the musical biopic parody Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Olive, the Other Reindeer Buy this Movie	The Ladies Man Buy this Movie	Saturday Night Live: The Best of Tim Meadows Buy this Movie	It's Pat Buy this Movie
Coneheads Buy this Movie	Wayne's World 2 Buy this Movie

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