Anderson, Louie 1953(?)-

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ANDERSON, Louie 1953(?)-

PERSONAL: Born March 24, c. 1953, in St. Paul, MN; son of Louie Anderson (a trumpet player); married, 1985 (divorced).

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o International Creative Management, 8942 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211.

CAREER: Worked as a children's counselor; comedian, beginning 1976, including appearances at the Comedy Store and on tour; writer, beginning 1989. Appeared in more than thirty television specials, including "Just for Laughs" and "Louie Anderson at the Guthrie," both presented by Showtime Comedy Spotlight, Showtime Network, 1987, "The Louie Anderson Show," presented by On Location, Home Box Office, 1988, and host of The Funny Things Kids Do, broadcast by Fox Network, 1997; narrator and voice performer for the animated television series Life with Louie, broadcast by Fox Network, 1995; guest on other television programs, including the Late Show. Creator of the television series Life with Louie (animated), broadcast by Fox Network, 1995, and The Louie Show, broadcast by Columbia Broadcasting System in 1996; also executive producer for television. Appeared in films, such as Ferris Bueller's Day Off, released by Paramount in 1986; Coming to America, released by Paramount in 1988; and Mr. Wrong, released by Buena Vista in 1996. HERO (mentoring program for the homeless), spokesperson, 1994.

AWARDS, HONORS: Shared Humanitas Prize, Human Family Educational and Cultural Institute, 1995; Daytime Emmy Award, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, 1996.

WRITINGS:

Dear Dad: Letters from an Adult Child (memoir), Viking (New York, NY), 1989.

Goodbye Jumbo, Hello Cruel World, illustrated by Robert de Michiell, Viking (New York, NY), 1993.

(With Carl Kurlander) The F Word: How to SurviveYour Family, Warner Books (New York, NY), 2002.

TELEVISION WRITING:

The Johnsons Are Home (pilot), Columbia Broadcasting System, 1988.

"Louie Anderson: Comedy on Canvas" (special), presented on HBO Comedy Hour, Home Box Office, 1990.

Louie Anderson: Louie in St. Louie (television special), Showtime Network, 1993.

ADAPTATIONS: Narrator of the audio-book adaptation of his memoir, Dear Dad: Letters from an Adult Child, released by Harper Audio in 1990. Episodes of the animated television series Life with Louie were adapted by Katy Hall as the books A Christmas Surprise for Mrs. Stillman and Life with Louie: A Bully, a Bodyguard, and a Fish Called Pepper, both published by HarperActive (New York, NY) in 1998.

SIDELIGHTS: Louie Anderson is a popular comedian who is known for his autobiographical material. He began his show-business career in St. Paul-Minneapolis at age twenty-six when he accepted a challenge to perform and promptly won a booking. For the next four years he continued performing regularly in the Twin Cities, where he developed a largely anecdotal act that also derived humor from life's more mundane aspects. Holiday gatherings, for instance, are among the domestic rituals that Anderson exploits for comedic effect. Personal well-being is another of Anderson's favorite subjects. The noticeably overweight comic—who, according to People, once weighed 300 pounds—regularly calls attention to his excessive eating, which he relates, in turn, to his father's alcoholism. "My weight thing is directly tied to my father and his drinking," he commented to People.

In 1989 Anderson released Dear Dad: Letters from an Adult Child, an occasionally funny, but more often unsettling, account of his childhood with an alcoholic father. Laurie Stone, writing in the New York Times Book Review, reported that in Dear Dad Anderson "reveals his pain without overdramatizing his plight," and she concluded that the book is "moving."

Anderson has won widespread praise for his television performances. His foremost appearances came with Louie Anderson at the Guthrie and The Louie Anderson Show, two presentations which originated on cable networks. Anderson has also toured the United States, notably with fellow comic Roseanne Barr. And in both television and stage performances Anderson continues to prove himself a master of what John J. O'Connor described in the New York Times as "old-fashioned, heart-warming humor."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Anderson, Louie, Dear Dad: Letters from an AdultChild, Viking (New York, NY), 1989.

Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, Volume 21, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2002, Brad Hooper, review of The F Word: How to Survive Your Family, p. 178.

New York Times, August 17, 1987, article by John J. O'Connor, p. C16.

New York Times Book Review, December 24, 1989, Laurie Stone, review of Dear Dad, p. 17; June 27, 1993, Andrea Cooper, review of Goodbye Jumbo, Hello Cruel World, p. 18.

People, September 7, 1987; April 18, 1988, pp. 105-106.

Publishers Weekly, March 1, 1993, review of GoodbyeJumbo, Hello Cruel World, p. 45.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 14, 2003, Doug Kaufman, "Funnyman Louie Anderson Travels Forward into the Past," p. 3.

TV Guide, July 27, 1996, Craig Modderno, "Louie, Louie" (interview), p. 49.

Washington Post, October 25, 1990.