Graduated from University of North Carolina and Yale University
Grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Lewis Black Detailed Biography
Lewis Black (born August 30, 1948) is a Jewish-American stand-up comedian, author, and playwright. He is best known for his regular appearances on Comedy Central's The Daily Show delivering his "Back in Black" commentaries. He currently lives in New York City.
Lewis Niles Black was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, graduating from Springbrook High School in 1966. He was exposed to playwriting as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned a Masters in Fine Arts at the Yale School of Drama in 1977. Originally, his career was in the theater as a playwright. He has written over forty plays besides serving as the playwright in residence and associate artistic director of a Hell's Kitchen theater bar and restaurant on 42nd Street in New York City from 1981 to 1989. Black's stand-up comedy began as an opening act for the plays as he was also the master of ceremonies. After a management change at the theater, Black left and began working as a comedian as well as finding bit parts in television and films.
In 2002, Black and fellow comedian Jim Norton were arrested because of their involvement with "The Naked Teen Voyeur Bus", a specially designed bus with Plexiglass walls that contained numerous teen (18 and 19 year old) girls. This bus was to ride around Manhattan while being broadcast on the famous Opie and Anthony radio show. Unfortunately, management at the radio station failed to inform the O&A show that the route the bus was planning on, was also the route that the President was taking that same day. Twenty-eight hours after the arrest, Black and Norton were released. Black appeared on "The Daily Show" the next night and made numerous mentions to the event. Norton appeared on the O&A show and did the same.
Since 2003, Black has hosted the World Stupidity Awards ceremony at Montreal's Just for Laughs comedy festival for the three years the awards have been presented.
In 2004, he had an HBO stand-up special entitled Black on Broadway, in addition to three previous Comedy Central Presents specials. Since November 9th, 2005, Lewis has been making appearances in small segments on The Weather Channel. In December 2005, he appeared in an animated holiday special The Happy Elf, as the voice of the extremely tightly wound elf, Norbert.
He is slated to become the host of his own show, Red State Diaries, in development by Comedy Central to begin airing in 2006. Comedy Central says it will feature Black on the road exploring the red states for explanations of the subjects of his comedic rants. This will be the second spin-off from The Daily Show, after The Colbert Report.
In April 2006, Lewis will release Live at Carnegie Hall, a recording made on September 24th, 2005 at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
