"There's a lot of labor involved in the birth of a new town." -- Michael Richards
Michael Anthony Richards (born July 24, 1949) is an Emmy award-winning American actor and comedian, best known for his portrayal of the eccentric Cosmo Kramer on the television sitcom Seinfeld.
Richards began his career as a stand up comedian, first stepping into a national spotlight when he was featured on Billy Crystal's first cable TV special. He went on to become a series regular on ABC's Fridays. Prior to Seinfeld, he made numerous guest appearances on a variety of television shows including Cheers, Night Court, Miami Vice and St. Elsewhere. His film credits include So I Married an Axe Murderer, Airheads, Young Doctors in Love, Problem Child, Coneheads and UHF. During the run of Seinfeld, he made a guest appearance in Mad About You. After Seinfeld, Richards starred in his own sitcom, The Michael Richards Show, which lasted less than one season.
After his series was canceled, Richards returned to his roots performing stand up comedy. After inciting some media furor in late 2006 over explosively addressing audience members at a comedy show with repeated racial epithets, Richards announced his retirement from stand-up in 2007. Most recently, Richards appeared as himself in the seventh season of Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2009, acting alongside his fellow Seinfeld cast members for the first time since Seinfeld's finale.
"I don't know, in view of the situation and the act going where it was going, I don't know, the rage did go all over the place. It went to everybody in the room.""I lost my temper on stage.""I'll get to the force field of this hostility, why it's there, why the rage is in any of us, why the trash takes place, whether or not it's between me and a couple of hecklers in the audience or between this country and another nation, the rage.""I'm a performer. I push the envelope, I work in a very uncontrolled manner onstage. I do a lot of free association, it's spontaneous, I go into character.""I'm not a racist, that's what so insane about this, and yet it's said, it comes through, it fires out of me, and even now in the passion that's here as I confront myself.""I'm really busted up over this and I'm very, very sorry to those people in the audience, the blacks, the Hispanics, whites - everyone that was there that took the brunt of that anger and hate and rage and how it came through.""It's strange how parts come along, how life lives us, and what we get to do with the abilities that are given us.""There's a great deal of disturbance in this country and how black feel about what happened in Katrina, and, you know, many of the comics, many of performers are in Las Vegas and New Orleans trying to raise money for what happened there.""When you perform in front of an audience after only two days of rehearsal, you're flying by the seat of your pants - particularly when they're rewriting the show right up to the moment the camera goes on."
Richards was born in Culver City, California, the son of Phyllis (née Nardozzi), a medical records librarian, and William Richards, an electrical engineer. Richards was brought up with no specific religious tradition. He was drafted during the Vietnam War, was in the U.S. Army for two years, and stationed in Germany as one of the co-directors of the V Corps Training Road Show. "This was a successful, educational operation, boosting the morale of our men and incorporating the arts into the service."
He attended the California Institute of the Arts but received a BA 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 at 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 also spent a few years "finding himself" at a commune in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In 1979, he drove a bus and developed his own nightclub act.
Richards got his big TV break in 1979, appearing in Billy Crystal's first cable TV special. 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 causing him to throw his drink into Richards' face, before a small riot ensued (Richards later claimed he was in on the joke). The film Man on the Moon featured a re-enactment of the Andy Kaufman incident in which Richards was portrayed by actor Norm Macdonald (although he is never referred to by name so he could be seen as a composite character taking the place of Richards).
He was also famous for a brief sketch that he did on the show, during which he simply improvised with a large pile of dirt and some army toys. In 1989, Richards had a strong supporting role in "Weird Al" Yankovic's comedy film UHF. On television, Richards also appeared in Miami Vice (as an unscrupulous bookie), Cheers (as a character trying to collect on an old bet with Sam Malone), and made several guest appearances with Jay Leno as an accident-prone fitness expert.
According to an interview with executive producer David Hoberman, ABC first conceived the series as a police show, Monk, with an Inspector Clouseau-like character suffering from obsessive—compulsive disorder. Mr. Hoberman said that ABC wanted Michael Richards for the Monk role, but Richards turned it down.
Seinfeld
In 1989, he was cast as Cosmo 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. In the setting of Seinfeld, Kramer is usually referred to by his last name only and is the neighbor of the show's eponymous character. Kramer's first name Cosmo was revealed in the sixth season episode "The Switch".
Richards won more Emmys than any other cast member on Seinfeld. He took home the award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series in 1993, 1994 and 1997.
Starting in 2004, he and his fellow Seinfeld cast members provided interviews and audio commentaries for the Seinfeld DVDs, but Richards stopped providing audio commentary after Season 5. He continued to provide interviews.
The Michael Richards Show
In 2000, after the end of Seinfeld, Richards began work on a new series for NBC, his first major project since Seinfeld's high-profile finale. The Michael Richards Show, for which the actor received co-writer and co-executive producer credits, was originally conceived as a comedy/mystery starring Richards as a bumbling private investigator. However, after the first pilot failed 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 canceled.
Cameo roles, guest appearances, and film roles
Richards played himself in Episode 6 of Season 1 "The Flirt Episode" (1992) of the HBO series, The Larry Sanders Show. Richards also played a cameo role in So I Married an Axe Murderer where he was an "insensitive man". Richards played radio station employee Doug Beech in Air Heads. He also made guest appearances on Miami Vice, Night Court and Cheers. In 2007, Richards voiced character Bud Ditchwater in the animated film Bee Movie, which starred, and was produced by, Jerry Seinfeld. In 2009, Richards and the other main Seinfeld cast members appeared in the seventh season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
On November 17, 2006, during a performance at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, California, a camera phone video captured Richards shouting "Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass!" to a heckler in the audience, followed by repeated shouts of "He's a nigger!" to the rest of the audience (using the racial epithet six times altogether and making a reference to lynching). He was addressing a pair of black hecklers. Another black member of the audience who was offended by the remarks retorted by calling Richards a "cracker" and "fucking white boy."
Richards made a public apology for his racist remarks, during a satellite appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, when Jerry Seinfeld was the guest. He described going into a rage and said, "For me to be at a comedy club and to flip out and say this crap, I'm deeply, deeply sorry." He said he was trying to defuse heckling by being even more outrageous, but that it had backfired. Richards later called civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in order to apologize. He also appeared as a guest on Jackson's syndicated radio show.
Kyle Doss, one of the members of the group that Richards had addressed, gave his explanation to CNN of the events prior to the cell phone video. He said that they had arrived in the middle of the performance and that, "I guess we're being a little loud, because there was 20 of us ordering drinks. And Richards said, 'Look at the stupid Mexicans and blacks being loud up there.'" Richards then continued with his routine. Doss added, "And, then, after a while, I told him, my friend doesn't think you're funny," which triggered Richards' outburst.
The incident was later parodied on several TV shows, including Curb Your Enthusiasm, MadTV, Family Guy and South Park.
Richards married former casting director Cathleen Lyons and had a daughter, Sophia. The two were divorced in 1992. He resides in Glendale, California.
In 2007, Richards became engaged to actress Beth Skipp.
In July 2007, partly due to the incident at the Laugh Factory club in November 2006, Richards announced that he has retired from stand-up comedy for "spiritual healing" purposes and would be traveling with his fiancée to Cambodia, where they would visit Angkor Wat, as well as more remote temples, on a tour sponsored by the Los Angeles-based Nithyananda Foundation.
Richards is a Freemason and also a 33° member of the Scottish Rite. He has been very active in preservation of Masonic research.
