Drew Carey

Drew Carey (actor)
Drew Carey plays the so named title character on The Drew Carey Show
Personal Information
Gender:	Male
Birthname	Drew Allison Carey
Born:	(1958-05-23) May 23, 1958
Birthplace:	Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation/ Career:	actor, comedian, sports executive, and game show host
Years Active:	1985-present
Character information
Appeared on:	The Drew Carey Show
Appears as:	Drew Carey (Character)
Episodes appeared in:	233 episodes; also executive producer; writer of 4 episodes

Drew Allison Carey (born May 23, 1958) plays the title character also named Drew Carey, on The Drew Carey Show.

About Drew

An actor, comedian, sports executive, and game show host, Drew, after serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and making a name for himself in stand-up comedy, Carey eventually gained popularity starring in his own sitcom, The Drew Carey Show, and serving as host of the U.S. version of the The WB Network improv comedy series Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza and Whose Line Is It Anyway? (U.S. TV series)|Whose Line Is It Anyway?, both of which aired on ABC.

Carey has appeared in several films, television series, music videos, a made-for-television film, and a computer game. He has hosted the game show] The Price Is Right (U.S. game show)|The Price Is Right since 2007 on CBS. He is interested in a variety of sports, has worked as a photographer at U.S. National Team soccer games, and is a minority owner of the Major League Soccer (MLS) team Seattle Sounders FC. Carey has written an autobiography, Dirty Jokes and Beer: Stories of the Unrefined, detailing his early life and television career.

Acting career

Early roles

His early stand-up career led to supporting roles on television shows, during which he developed the character of a hapless middle-class bachelor. In 1993, Carey had a small role in the film Coneheads as a taxi passenger. In 1994, Carey co-starred with John Caponera in The Good Life, a short-lived sitcom on NBC-TV. After the show was cancelled, Bruce Helford, a writer on the show, hired Carey as a consultant for the television show Someone Like Me.

The Drew Carey Show

After their stint on Someone Like Me, Carey and Helford developed and produced the storyline for The Drew Carey Show. The sitcom revolved around a fictionalized version of Carey, as he took on the stresses of life and work with his group of childhood friends. The show premiered on September 13, 1995, on ABC. In his autobiography, Carey revealed his frustration with having to deal with censors and being unable to employ the off-color humor common in his stand-up routines. Carey initially earned $60,000 per episode in the first seasons, then renegotiated for $300,000. By the final season, he was earning $750,000 per episode. The show had high ratings for its first few seasons, but declining ratings and increasing production costs (around $3 million per episode) precipitated its cancellation. The program had a total of 233 episodes over its nine-year run, and Carey was one of two actors to appear in every episode.

Improv television

While still starring in The Drew Carey Show, Carey began hosting the American version of the improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? in 1998. He would announce the improv guests, direct the games, and then would usually involve himself in the final game of the episode. The show ran for a total of 220 episodes until the show's cancellation in 2006. In 1998, the New York Friars' Club made Carey the newest inductee of the group's Comedy Central Roast. His friend Ryan Stiles (who costarred in The Drew Carey Show and Whose Line Is It Anyway?) served as the roastmaster. Carey's income from Whose Line Is It Anyway? and The Drew Carey Show led to his inclusion on the Forbes list of highest-paid entertainers of 1998, at 24th with $45.5 million.

For the WB's 2004–2005 prime time schedule, Carey co-produced and starred in Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, a spin-off of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. It was canceled by the WB, but picked up shortly afterward by Comedy Central. The show's premise relied on the use of a green screen for some of the actors' improv interaction with each other. Animation on the screen was visible to the live audience and it was also inserted during post-production for the television audience

In April 2011, Carey began hosting a primetime improv show, called Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza. It was filmed at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, and first aired on April 11. The show took on the premise of Whose Line? and Drew Carey's Green Screen Show in that it features many of the same performers from both shows and did improv based on audience-provided suggestions.

Game show host

Power of 10

Beginning in 2007, Carey began hosting game shows, beginning with his April selection as host of the CBS game show pilot Power of 10. The show ran from August 7, 2007 to January 23, 2008 and aired twice weekly during the late summer and early fall. Each game featured contestants predicting how a cross-section of Americans responded to questions covering a wide variety of topics in polls conducted by CBS.

The Price Is Right

After taping the pilot episode for Power of 10, Carey was contacted by CBS about replacing longtime host Bob Barker—who had earlier announced his own retirement—as host of The Price Is Right. After initially turning down the offer, Carey announced on Late Show with David Letterman that he would succeed Barker as host of the program beginning in the fall of 2007. His first episode of The Price Is Right was taped on August 15, 2007, and his shows began airing on October 15, 2007. In response to replacing Barker as host of the game show, Carey stated "You can't replace Bob Barker. I don't compare myself to anybody... It's only about what you're doing and supposed to do, and I feel like I'm supposed to be doing this." When Carey began hosting, the set, theme music, and show logo were updated. However, Carey kept the old closing line about spaying and neutering the pets that originated with Barker, although his version uses slightly different wording. During Carey's second year as host, he began to write some of the sketches used during the Showcase, which sometimes features guest appearances by stars of other CBS programs.

In the April Fools' Day 2013 episode, Carey and announcer George Gray switched places with the models, letting the two men be the models for the episode. On the April Fools' Day 2014 episode, Carey and Gray traded positions with Craig Ferguson (who was hosting The Late Late Show at the time) and Shadoe Stevens, reprising their respective roles on Ferguson's show while Ferguson hosted and Stevens announced on Price. On the first week of Season 46 (September 18–22, 2017), Carey celebrated his 10 years as host of the show, joining Barker as the only two to have hosted for at least a decade.

Trivia

• He was engaged to the late therapist Amie Harwick in February 1, 2018 til they broke up and stayed friends til her murder.

External links

• Drew Carey article at Wikipedia