Michael Richards
Three-time
Emmy Award winner
Michael Richards (born
July 24,
1949 in
Culver City,
California) is an
American actor,
Freemason[Brother Michael A. Richards: Renaissance Man, not "Kramer" The Scottish Rite Journal, September 2000, accessed 10 February, 2006.]["The Scottish Rite Journal of Freemasonry", Southern Jursidiction USA, August 2003, accessed 7 August, 2006] writer,
producer, and
comedian, best known for playing
Cosmo Kramer on the television show
Seinfeld.
Richards attended the
California Institute of the Arts but received a
BFA degree in drama from
The Evergreen State College in
1975 (he also had a short-lived Improv act with
Ed Begley, Jr. during this period).
Enrolled in the Los Angeles Valley College, he continued to dominate student productions. He later said, "I am grateful that the public schools introduced me to the performing arts." He was drafted during the
Vietnam war and stationed in
Germany as one of the co-directors of the V Corps Training Road Show. He produced and directed shows dealing with race relations and
drug abuse; "This was a successful, educational operation, boosting the morale of our men and incorporating the arts into the service." He then spent two years in the Army developing educational skits and a couple more years "finding himself" at a
commune in the Santa Clara Mountains; he drove a bus and developed a
stand-up comedy act in
1979. Richards got his big TV break nine months later appearing in
Billy Crystal's first cable
TV special.
He married Cathleen Richards, a former casting director (they
divorced in
1990), a union that produced his daughter, Sophia, and now lives in the
San Fernando Valley.
In 1980, he began as one of the cast members on
ABC's
Fridays television show (including a famous instance in which guest
Andy Kaufman refused to deliver his scripted lines, leading Richards to bring the cue cards on screen to Kaufman, before a small riot ensued). He was also famous for a sketch that he did on the show, during which he simply improvised with a large pile of dirt and some army toys. He made several guest appearances with
Jay Leno as an accident-prone fitness expert, and gained a screen credit portraying "Stanley Spadowski" in
"Weird Al" Yankovic's movie
UHF in
1989. His famous
improvisation skills can be witnessed in this movie. As is confirmed in the feature
commentary and in the deleted scenes special feature on the
UHF DVD, the scene where Stanley Spadowski was playing with the toy man he found in the box of
Corn Flakes was completely improvised by Michael.
In the same year, he was cast as
Cosmo Kramer (based on real-life counterpart
Kenny Kramer) in the
NBC television series Seinfeld, which was created by fellow
Fridays cast member
Larry David and
comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Although it got off to a slow start, by the mid-
1990s, the show had become one of the most popular
sitcoms in television history. The series ended its nine-year run in
1998 at #1 in the
Nielsen Ratings.
Richards also played a
cameo role in
So I Married an Axe Murderer where he was an "insensitive man," and had a supporting role as an escaped convict in the
John Ritter movie
Problem Child.
He was once on the show "Night Court".
In
2000, Richards began work on a new series for NBC, his first major project since
Seinfeld's high-profile finale.
The Michael Richards Show was originally conceived as a comedy/mystery, but the first pilot fared poorly with test audiences. NBC ordered that the show be retooled into a more conventional, office-based sitcom before its premiere. After a few weeks of poor ratings and negative reviews, it was cancelled.
Richards was also slated to star as the title character in the
USA series
Monk, but pulled out of the project. The role later went to
Tony Shalhoub, who would go on to win
Emmy awards for his role.
Starting in
2004, he and his fellow
Seinfeld castmembers have participated in providing interviews and audio commentaries for the
Seinfeld DVDs.
He is slated to appear alongside Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker in
Rush Hour 3.
