David Steinberg

Comedian David Steinberg, born in 1942, grew up in Winnipeg, Canada. He left home to attend the University of Chicago. The family moved to Chicago when he was a teen. It was there that he saw a performance by the Second City Chicago Troupe and it changed the course of his life. With another student at the university, he started a comedy act called Kadish and Steinberg. After members of Second City saw them, he was invited to join the company and was with them for four years. In the late 60's he moved on to Broadway with leading roles in "Little Murders" and "Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights", the latter directed by Sidney Poitier. From there he moved to stand up comedy opening at the Bitter End in 1969. He received a rave review from the New York times, calling him a cross between Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen. After his first appearance on the The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), he became one of Johnny Carson's most popular guests and guest hosts, with 140 appearances, second only to Bob Hope. He wrote and performed for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967) where his irreverent "sermons" were often censored and cited as the reason for the show's cancellation. Steinberg's sometimes racy, usually anti-establishment stance of the late 60s/early 70s made him a favorite among the young and disillusioned. Steinberg released four solo comedy albums and CBS gave him his own summer comedy variety series with The David Steinberg Show (1972). In 1976, Steinberg returned to Canada to create and star in another series, also called _'The David Steinberg Show'. Gary Shandling credits this show as being one of the influences for _The Larry Sanders Show(1992)_. It featured John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Martin Short and Dave Thomas who went on to form the legendary SCTV troupe. In 1982 Steinberg made his directorial debut with the feature Paternity (1981) and, the following year, his TV directorial debut with an episode of Newhart (1982). In the 90s, he became the executive producer of the popular CBS-TV Designing Women (1986) and continued to direct. Other TV credits as director include episodes of The Golden Girls (1985), Seinfeld (1989) , Mad About You (1992), Weeds (2005), and Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000). He won two Emmy Awards for his writing on Oscar telecasts in the early 90s. Steinberg has also directed over 300 television commercials, winning two Clio Awards and the prestigious Silver Lion Award at the Cannes International Film Festival. As a film director, he directed Paternity (1981) with Burt Reynolds, Going Berserk (1983) with John Candy and The Wrong Guy (1997) with Dave Foley. In 2007, Simon and Schuster published his memoir about his life in comedy called "The Book of David".