Howie Mandel
| Howie Mandel | |
|---|---|
Mandel in Las Vegas, May 2007
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| Birth name | Howard Michael Mandel |
| Born |
November 29, 1955 Willowdale, Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Medium | Stand-up, television, film, books |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Genres | Observational comedy, improvisational comedy |
| Subject(s) | Everyday life, self-deprecation |
| Spouse | Terry Soil (m. 1980) |
| Children | 3 |
| Notable works and roles | Host of Deal or No Deal, Dr. Wayne Fiscus on St. Elsewhere, Bunsen Honeydew, Animal, and Skeeter (Season 1–2) on Muppet Babies, Bobby Generic and Howard Generic on Bobby's World, Longest judge on America's Got Talent, Gizmo in Gremlins and Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Host of Mobbed, Host of Howie Do It |
| Website | howiemandel |
Howard Michael "Howie" Mandel (born November 29, 1955) is a Canadian comedian, actor, television host, and voice actor. He is well known as host of the NBC game show Deal or No Deal, as well as the show's daytime and Canadian-English counterparts. Before his career as a game show host, Mandel was best known for his role as rowdy ER intern Dr. Wayne Fiscus on the NBC medical drama St. Elsewhere. He is also well known for being the creator and star of the children's cartoon Bobby's World.
Mandel became a judge on NBC's America's Got Talent, replacing David Hasselhoff, in the fifth season of the reality talent contest. Mandel has mysophobia (an irrational fear of germs) to the point that he does not shake hands with anyone, including contestants on Deal or No Deal, unless he is wearing latex gloves; to that end, he prefers to do "fist bumps" instead.
Mandel was born and lived in the Willowdale area of Toronto, Ontario. Mandel is Jewish (his ancestors emigrated from Romania and Poland) and a distant cousin to violinist Itzhak Perlman. His father was a lighting manufacturer and a real estate agent. After getting expelled from his high school (William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate Institute) for impersonating a member of the school board and signing a construction contract to make an addition to his school, Mandel became a carpet salesman who would later open a carpet sales business of his own. He was a stand-up comedian at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto and by September 1978 had a week-long booking as featured act, billed as "a wild and crazy borderline psychotic." His repertoire included placing a latex glove over his head and inflating it by blowing through his nose, the fingers of the glove extending above his head like a cockscomb. When the audience reacted uproariously to that and similar antics, his trademark response was to extend his arms palms up, look incredulous, and say, "it's you"
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