I studied acting at Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh because I figured a good comedian certainly could act.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was an actor before becoming a comedian.
I went to college in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University... studied acting there. Then I went to New York for about five years. I moved out here about 10 years ago.
I did theater at Carnegie, and in Pittsburgh and New York.
I did an internship in the Silicon Valley during the Internet boom. I couldn't imagine sitting in a cubicle the rest of my life, so I gave acting a try. I would have been happy doing theater and making nothing.
I always wanted to be an actor, even as a little kid. So I went to drama school in the late '60s at Carnegie Mellon.
Oh yeah, I'd love to be a comedian. I've done a lot, but always in the confines of plays.
I eventually became an actor, starting with doing stand-up comedy in New York and then theater wherever they would let me. Finally, I moved out here to Los Angeles and got on a show.
I was a musical theatre geek in high school and college.
It's funny, because I was trained as a dramatic actor at New York's Colonnades Theater Lab in the '70s, along with Jeff Goldblum, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. People I worked with there saw a comedian in me. I'm still most at home in comedy.
It never dawned on me that I had the option of becoming a comedian. I come from a little dirt street town in northwest Texas, and they really don't talk about the arts there much on career day.