Steven Alexander Wright (born December 6, 1955) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and writer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, witty, deeply philosophical and sometimes confusing or nonsensical jokes and one-liners with overly-contrived situations.
Wright was born in Burlington, Massachusetts, the son of Dolly Wright. His father was an electronics company executive. Wright attended Emerson College and began performing stand-up comedy in 1982.
Wright's 1985 comedy album entitled I Have a Pony, released on Warner Bros. Records, received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. In 1989, he won an Academy Award for his short film, The Appointments of Dennis Jennings. In 1992, Wright had a recurring role on the television sitcom Mad About You. He also supplied the voice of the radio DJ in the film Reservoir Dogs.
There are numerous lists of jokes attributed to Wright circulating on the Internet, sometimes of dubious origin. Wright has stated that "someone showed me a site, and half of it that said I wrote it, I didn't write. Recently, I saw one, and I didn't write any of it. What's disturbing is that with a few of these jokes, I wish I had thought of them. A giant amount of them, I'm embarrassed that people think I thought of them, because some are really bad."
After his 1990 comedy special Wicker Chairs and Gravity, Wright continued to do live stand-up performances, but was largely absent from television, only doing occasional guest spots on late night talk shows. In 2006, Wright noticed that much of his audience in recent years was getting older and wanted to reach out to a generation that only knew him from films like Half Baked. He produced his first stand-up special in 16 years, Steven Wright: When the Leaves Blow Away, originally aired on Comedy Central on October 21st, 2006 and again a day after its DVD release date, Wednesday, April 24.
In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. He was named #23 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest standups of all time.
On September 25, 2007, Wright released a follow-up to I Have a Pony, titled I Still Have a Pony (a CD release of the material from When the Leaves Blow Away). It was also nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
