Kathy Griffin

Comedian / Actor

Kathy Griffin is best known for a stand-up comedy act in which she makes derisive fun of other celebrities' behavior. Born and raised in the Chicago area, she broke into the Los Angeles entertainment scene in the early 1990s by joining an improvisational troupe, the Groundlings, and landing occasional television parts. By the late 1990s she had gained notice with her solo act on the comedy-room circuit and a regular role as Brooke Shields' co-worker, Vicki Groener, on the NBC sitcom Suddenly Susan (1996-2000). Griffin also appeared in two episodes (in 1996 and 1998) of the legendary NBC series Seinfeld as Sally Weaver, a comedian bent on ridiculing Jerry Seinfeld. Griffin's solo act remains popular in clubs, on college campuses and on cable TV, where her program on the Bravo channel, My Life on the D-List, has run since 2005. Its title refers to the low-grade celebrity status she embraces. She set off a controversy in 2007 by making a crude remark about Jesus while accepting a best-reality-series Emmy won by D-List; the comment was edited out of the awards broadcast.

Extra credit: She married Matt Moline, owner of a computer consulting company in 2001; they divorced in 2006. She was later linked romantically for a time with Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak... In 2003 she won $233,000 in prize money on the ABC-TV program, Celebrity Mole Hawaii... Her eclectic credits include roles as herself in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction and as the voice of Alice in the 1999-2000 animated TV series Dilbert.

Other famous female actor-comedians on Who2 include Lucille Ball, Whoopi Goldberg and Gilda Radner.