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| Birth Name(s) : Kathy Griffin |
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Full Kathy Griffin Biography
Kathy Griffin (born November 4, 1960) is an Emmy Award-winning American stand-up comedienne, producer, and actress. She has also been a voice actress and a red carpet commentator. Griffin is a self-proclaimed "D-list celebrity." She is arguably best known for her role on NBC's Suddenly Susan. She is also known for her reality show, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, and for guest co-hosting on The View.
Griffin was born Kathleen Mary Griffin in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, and raised there and in nearby Forest Park. She is a 1978 graduate of Oak Park and River Forest High School.
Griffin gradually amassed such TV and film credits as a role in comedian Julie Brown's Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful (1992), a Showtime parody of the backstage film Truth or Dare (1991); two appearances as the character Susan Klein on NBC's The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, her TV sitcom debut; fellow comic Bob Goldthwait's movie Shakes the Clown (1992); and an episode of ABC's divorce-attorney series Civil Wars, Griffin's dramatic-series debut.
Griffin also has a secondary career in voiceover work, and has been featured on a variety of projects such as the Dilbert animated series and one of the Spider-Man animated series.
Griffin's TV production company is called Inappropriate Laughter, a reference to her sometimes shocking form of humor.
Griffin was considered to join the panel of The View in fall 2007 as a replacement for departing panelist Rosie O'Donnell. Despite running jokes in her act about Executive Producer Barbara Walters not liking her, Griffin co-hosted the show many times after O'Donnell left in May 2007. Whoopi Goldberg was ultimately selected as a permanent replacement. On September 10, 2007 Sherri Shepherd took over the remaining co-host spot, vacant since Star Jones' departure. Bill Zwecker of the Chicago Sun-Times reports that a source tells him that The View is having second thoughts about hiring Sherri Shepherd over Griffin, although both The View and Walters' spokespersons deny this. Walters has stated that she was worried about hiring another loose cannon after the troubles with Rosie O'Donnell.
The second season, which premiered on June 6, 2006, brought Griffin the 2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality Program, non-competition, on September 8, 2007. She received it during the Creative Arts Emmy, which was hosted by Carlos Mencia and aired on E! on September 15. Griffin stirred up controversy with her acceptance speech, saying that "a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. He didn't help me a bit." She went on to hold up her Emmy and say, "Suck it, Jesus, this award is my god now!" Griffin meant this remark not as a slight on Jesus but rather as a satire of celebrities who thank Jesus profusely for their awards.
The third season premiered on June 5, 2007, to an all-time ratings high for the Bravo Network, with over 1 million viewers, a 77 percent increase in viewers aged 18 to 49, and a 57 percent increase in overall viewers. The new season introduced Tom, who was hired as a dog walker but was promoted to Griffin's housemate and tour manager, and Tiffany, Jessica's assistant; it also covered an emotional period of her life during the death of her father.
At a time when some stand-up comedy was turning from punch-line orientation to humorous social commentary and satire, Griffin established her career with candid observations about her dating life. Later she began to focus on mocking celebrities, and her act currently consists of recounting embellished stories involving celebrities. Her favorite celebrity topics are plastic surgery, Scientology, drunkenness, substance abuse, snooty attitudes, eating disorders, and stars whose sexual orientation is disputed. Among Griffin's staples are Clay Aiken, Barbara Walters, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Gwyneth Paltrow, Star Jones, Oprah Winfrey, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan.
While Griffin paints herself as a Hollywood outsider, she has a group of close celebrity friends that she only speaks positively about in her acts, such as Rosie O'Donnell, Joan Rivers, Brooke Shields, Whoopi Goldberg and Lance Bass. Griffin's longtime friendship with Bass was the catalyst for a feud between her and gossip blogger Perez Hilton, in which Griffin expressed anger over Hilton's "outing" of Bass on his website, calling Hilton's attacks on Bass "mean" and "unfunny". Hilton responded by saying that Griffin's anger was hypocritical, considering all of the gay jokes she makes about Clay Aiken in her stand-up routines. In 2007, Griffin commented on her adversion to making fun of celebrity friends by saying, "There’s nothing I won’t do, but on the other hand I’m full of shit because that changes. For example, you know Lance Bass from 'N Sync and how he’s gay now? All those years that I knew he was gay, he and I were friends, I would never say, ‘Hey, by the way, did you know that Lance Bass is gay?’" Griffin and Hilton ended their feud after the death of Griffin's father, and Hilton appeared on an episode of her show in 2007.
Griffin's father, John Patrick Griffin, died of heart failure on February 17, 2007, during the third season shooting of her reality show. The episode related to his passing aired on June 19. |
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