Andy Borowitz

At 66 years old, Andy Borowitz has this physical status:

Andy Borowitz (born January 4, 1958) is an American writer, comedian, satirist, and actor.

Borowitz is a New York Times best-selling author who received the first National Press Club award for humor.

He is best known for bringing the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the satirical column The Borowitz Report.

Early life

Borowitz was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where he graduated from Shaker Heights High School to a marginally observant Reform Jewish family.

Borowitz graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he lived in Adams House and was president of the Harvard Lampoon. He has also written for the Hasty Pudding Theatricals. Borowitz grew up in the theatre and wrote his undergraduate thesis on Restoration comedies.

Personal life

He was married to Susan Borowitz, co-creator of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Olivia Gentile, the author of Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds, married him after their divorce. He has three children and lives in New Hampshire.

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Career

Borowitz began attending Harvard and worked for producer Bud Yorkin at Tandem Productions, the firm founded by producer Norman Lear, the maker of All in the Family. He wrote for Square Pegs, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, from 1982 to 1983. He wrote for The Facts of Life from 1983 to 1984. He wrote for various television shows in the 1980s.

Will Smith's acting career began during his marriage to writer and producer Susan Borowitz (1982–2005). In 1993, the series was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series by the NAACP.

Borowitz co-produced the film Pleasantville, starring Reese Witherspoon, Tobey Maguire, William H. Macy, Joan Allen, and Jeff Daniels. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, and Best Music, Original Dramatic Score.

Borowitz appeared in Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda, starring Will Ferrell, as well as Marie and Bruce, starring Julianne Moore and Matthew Broderick in 2004. Wallace Shawn and producer Tom Cairns co-authored Marie and Bruce.

In 2007 he appeared in the film Fired!

Borowitz began sending humourous news parodies to friends in the late 1990s. He founded The Borowitz Report, a website that features a one-word news satire every weekday. Borowitz, the political satirist, gained renown and brisk interest. In 2003, the Wall Street Journal dedicated a page-one column to him and his website, and in the millions, readership soared to the millions. The newspaper syndicator Creators Syndicate began syndicating The Borowitz Report to scores of major newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, and The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2005. It's also one of the Newsweek website's longest-running features. On the National Public Radio's Weekend Edition and Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me!, the former on Sunday and Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Borowitz is also a regular contributor to The Funny Times, a humor newspaper.

He began blogging for the Huffington Post in 2007. His articles were quickly adopted on the blog's home page, becoming one of the blog's most popular features. His fame soared during the 2008 election, prompting The Daily Beast to label him "America's satire king."

In 2009, The Borowitz Report introduced a Twitter website, which was named the world's top Twitter account in a Time magazine poll. He eventually stopped eating the feed.

Borowitz revealed on July 18, 2012, the first time that the magazine had made such a purchase. The Borowitz Report, which appeared in its first 24 hours as a New Yorker special, received the most page views on the entire New Yorker website.

Borowitz joined CNN's American Morning in 2002 and appeared on CNN's American Morning three mornings a week. In 2004, he covered the Democratic National Convention for the channel, collaborating with comedian Lewis Black of The Daily Show in tandem. Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Best Week Ever on VH1, and Live at Gotham on Comedy Central have all appeared on various television shows, including Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Best Week Ever on VH1 and Live at Gotham on Comedy Central.

Borowitz appeared on the PBS show You Know It! in 2010. Borowitz was singled out for praise by Tom Shales, a Washington Post television analyst, who called him "one of the wittiest Web wags."

Borowitz's success as a television comedian led to his rise to fame as a stand-up comedian and comedian, as well as Carolines on Broadway, where he hosts Next Week's News every week. Amy Sedaris and Susie Essman of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm are two other well-known comedians who have performed with him on that program.

He appeared at The Comedy Festival in Aspen, Colorado, for four years, beginning in 2004.

In September 2007, he headlined a version of Next Week's News at the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle, Washington, which attracted standing-room audiences and critical acclaim in the media, including the Seattle Times-Intelligencer. Denis Leary, Bill Maher, and Sarah Silverman appeared at a sold-out crowd at the 2007 New York Comedy Festival, which featured other well-known comedians, including Denis Leary, Bill Maher, and Sarah Silverman.

He hosted "Countdown to the Election" at 92nd Street's in 2008. Arianna Huffington, Mo Rocca, Jonathan Alter, Joy Behar, and Jeffrey Toobin were among the show's featured stars, earning rave reviews and including Arianna Huffington, Mo Rocca, Jonathan Alter, Jonathan Behar, and Jeffrey Toobin.

He continued to tour the country, with a show at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in April 2008. Borowitz appeared to a packed house and had the audience "erupting with laughter," according to the university newspaper Daily Nexus.

In a Yale Magazine profile on May 2009, comedian Mike Birbiglia praised Borowitz: "Andy just picked up stand-up comedy as a hobby, and he's as good at it as anyone."

CBS News Sunday Morning published a retrospective of his work as a comedian and writer on November 28, 2010, naming him "one of America's funniest people."

He appeared at Central Park Summerstage in New York City on June 28, 2011 and drew a crowd estimated at 5,000, breaking a new record for a spoken-word festival.

Borowitz began adding humour to The New Yorker newspaper in 1998. He became one of the magazine's most popular humor contributors, writing hundreds of articles including "Emily Dickinson, Jerk of Amherst," which was selected as one of the magazine's most amusing comedy pieces and included in The New Yorker's humor collection entitled Fierce Pajamas. "Disquiet, Please," the magazine's 2008 collection featured two more amusing pieces of his work. Woody Allen, Steve Martin, and Calvin Trillin have all appeared in The Town Hall in New York City with such other New Yorker contributors as Woody Allen, Steve Martin, and Calvin Trillin. In addition, he has performed with The Second City and David Sedaris on the New Yorker College Tour, where he has appeared with improv team The Second City and David Sedaris.

Borowitz has contributed to several other magazines, including Vanity Fair and The Believer, and was a primary contributor to Army Man, the cult magazine.

Borowitz was chosen by the National Book Foundation in 2009 to host the National Book Awards in New York City. Steve Martin and Garrison Keillor, two comedians and writers, appeared on previous hosts. His success earned him a return to the 2010 awards ceremony.

Borowitz was chosen by the Library of America to edit an anthology of American humor titled The 50 Funniest American Writers in 2011. The book, which was supposed to be published on October 13, 2011, was going to be encompassing American humor from Mark Twain to The Onion. On the day of its publication, the book became the country's top-selling humor book, debuting at number eight on Amazon.com and becoming the top-one humor book. It became also the first book in the Library of America's 32-year history to be a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller. It was named as a Best Book of the Year by Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, and Amazon.com named it the Year's Best Book of the Year. The Washington Post characterized Borowitz's enduring popularity in a feature about the book, naming him "America's best fake-news creator and sharpest political satirist."

Borowitz's first autobiographical work, An Unexpected Twist, was published on Amazon Kindle #1 in 2012. Borowitz's near-death experience in 2008 while undergoing emergency abdominal surgery in New York City is chronicled in the essay. On the first day of publication, the book, which was a mix of grim comedy, hospitalization, and love story, debuted at number one on Amazon's Kindle Single Chart. It was the first nonfiction Kindle Single to debut on The Wall Street Journal's bestseller list, debuting at number six.

"Andy Borowitz is the funniest human on Twitter," Dwight Garner wrote in his book review for The New York Times, and that does not mean praise. The new best-selling Single is his first original e-book, "An Unexpected Twist," about a blockage in his colon that nearly killed him. This nifty book has a sneaky emotional sense of urgency. He'd been married only a few months at the time of his illness, and his little book becomes a rather long love tale."

"Borowitz has become one of the country's most lauded satirists," journalist Seth Mnookin wrote in his book, referring to him as a literary Jon Stewart. His name appears on the front of one of the most popular Library of America volumes ever (The 50 Funniest American Writers*), according to Andy Borowitz (*according to Andy Borowitz). Time magazine followers ranked him as the world's biggest Twitter stream. Borowitz has also hosted the National Book Awards twice... It's no surprise that he's able to mine his circumstances for humour. What makes "An Unexpected Twist" so enjoyable is his ability to highlight some of the more surprising and infuriating aspects of modern American medical care without hitting the reader over the head with them."

Amazon named "An Unexpected Twist" as the Best Kindle Single of 2012.

Borowitz has been the primary host of The Moth, a New York-based storytelling company, since 1999. He appears on his own, with the help of Dave Barry, Matt Groening, Roy Blount Jr., Stephen King, Amy Tan, Robert Fulghum, Barbara Kingsolver, and Scott Turow. He has worked in the United States and Europe and is on the visiting faculty of the Maurits Binger Film Institute in Amsterdam.

He took over as the host of News Quiz USA's BBC comedy series in October 2012. On BBC Radio 4 in the United Kingdom, millions of viewers have tuned in, and WNYC in New York is broadcast on the public radio station WNYC.

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Awards

• 1992 – NAACP Image Award for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
• 2001 and 2005 – finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor
• 2002 – inducted into the New York Friars' Club
• 2004 – inaugural National Press Club Award for Humor