SANDRA BERNHARD Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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SANDRA BERNHARD

Name: Sandra Bernhard                                                               
Born: 6 June 1955 Flint, Michigan, U.S.                                             
                                                                                   
Sandra Bernhard (born June 6, 1955 in Flint, Michigan) is an American comedian,     
actress, author and singer. She first gained attention in the late 1970s with       
her stand-up comedy where she often bitterly critiques celebrity culture and       
political figures. She is also famous for her close friendship to Madonna during   
the late 1980s. Bernhard is number 97 on Comedy Central's list of the 100           
greatest standups of all time.                                                     
                                                                                   
Bernhard has often addressed her childhood in interviews and within the context     
of her stand-up comedy. In early childhood her family moved from Michigan to       
Scottsdale, Arizona. She speaks of racially-motivated teasing during childhood,     
stemming from being a young Jewish woman amongst those she describes as "blonde     
WASPs". In particular she speaks of the mockery of her stereotypically Jewish       
features, such as her lips and nose. During an appearance on The Arsenio Hall       
Show she stated "I'm the only actress in Hollywood who didn't pay to have these     
lips."                                                                             
                                                                                   
Of her family, Bernhard stated in her show Without You I'm Nothing: "My father     
was a proctologist and my mother was an abstract artist, so that's how I view       
the world." In the documentary program Girls Who Do: Comedy, she discusses being   
a funny teenager. After graduating from high school she went to live on a           
kibbutz in Israel. She moved to Los Angeles at the age of 19. During that time     
she made ends meet working as a manicurist in a high-end salon.                     
                                                                                   
Bernhard became a popular staple at The Comedy Store. As her popularity as a       
comedian grew she was cast as a supporting player on The Richard Pryor Show in     
1977. Guest appearances on evening talk shows followed. Her big break came in       
1983 when she was cast by Martin Scorsese to star as stalker and kidnapper Masha   
in the film The King of Comedy. Bernhard later spoke of her contentious             
relationship with co-star Jerry Lewis. In a 2006 interview on The View she         
claimed he called her "Fish Lips", and that he "wanted me to fall through a         
glass table in my bra and panties."                                                 
                                                                                   
She began performing her first one-woman show called I'm Your Woman in 1985, and   
an unsuccessful album version was released. Bernhard appeared in a variety of       
small film and television roles throughout the 1980s while crafting her stand-up   
routine into a more performance art oriented show. She launched an off-Broadway     
one woman show called Without You I'm Nothing in 1988 which played at The           
Orpheum Theatre. In 1990 it was turned into a film, also called Without You I'm     
Nothing; and into a double-album of the same name. In all three she notoriously     
performed a ballad version of the Prince song Little Red Corvette; in the film     
she did a strip tease to Prince's version. The film was mostly filmed on           
location in 1989 in The Coconut Grove located in The Ambassador Hotel.