Paula Poundstone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Paula Poundstone | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 29, 1959 Huntsville, Alabama, USA |
| Medium | Stand-up, television |
| Nationality | American |
| Years active | 1979 - present |
| Genres | Observational comedy, Improvisational comedy |
| Subject(s) | everyday life, motherhood, |
| Influences | Lily Tomlin, Bill Cosby, George Carlin |
| Website | PaulaPoundstone.com |
Paula Poundstone (born December 29, 1959 in Huntsville, Alabama) is an American stand-up comic. She is known for her quiet, self-deprecating style, political observations, and her trademark suit and tie outfit.
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[edit] Life
Poundstone's family moved to Sudbury, Massachusetts when she was young (some sources incorrectly state Poundstone was born in Sudbury)[citation needed]. She adopted her first child, Thomas, in 1993. In 1997, she adopted two girls, Toshia and Allison. She has been a foster mother to several children, but is now barred from providing foster care in the aftermath of her arrest.
In a promotional spot for NPR, she claims to have lived with Timothy Leary briefly as a young adult, and says he sparked her interest in following current events, after having rushed into her bedroom while she was taking a nap and exclaiming, "The news is on!"[citation needed]
[edit] Career
Poundstone attended Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, eventually dropping out to pursue a show business career. Her jobs have included busing tables and working as a bicycle messenger. She started doing stand-up comedy on open-mike nights in Boston in 1979 and then relocated to California. In 1984, Poundstone was cast in the movie Hyperspace but she did not follow through on a potential acting career. Instead she became better known as a comedian and began appearing on several talk shows. In 1989, she won the American Comedy Award for "Best Female Stand-Up Comic." In 1990, she wrote and starred in an HBO special Cats, Cops and Stuff and subsequently won a CableACE Award for the show. She worked as a political correspondent for the Tonight Show during the 1992 Presidential campaign and did the same for The Rosie O'Donnell Show in 1996.
In 1993, Poundstone won a second Cable Ace Award, began writing a regular column "Hey, Paula!" for Mother Jones magazine (1993-1998), and had a variety show The Paula Poundstone Show on ABC (which lasted only two episodes). She was a regular panelist for the game shows Hollywood Squares and To Tell the Truth.
Poundstone voiced Judge Stone on Science Court, an edutainment cartoon series done in Squigglevision shown on ABC Kids in 1997.
Poundstone also served as a panelist on the 2000 revival of the television game show To Tell the Truth.
She voiced Paula Small on the cartoon series Home Movies. Also, she is currently a regular panelist on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, a radio game show produced by NPR. She is a regular guest on A Prairie Home Companion, often appearing in shows in Los Angeles or at joke shows.
She is number 88 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest standups of all time, and number 7 on Maxim's list of "Worst Comedians of All Time".[1]
She had her own Bravo special as part of their three-part Funny Girls series, along with Caroline Rhea and Joan Rivers. It was entitled, "Look What the Cat Dragged In."
Around the same time as her Bravo special, Poundstone also released her first book entitled "There is Nothing in this Book That I Meant to Say." Described as an autobiography that is "part memoir- part monologue," the book intertwines historical biographies with anecdotes from her own life story. She took a number of years to write the work, since she does not use a computer or know how to type, she wrote the entire book by hand in her spare time.
[edit] Arrest
In 2001 Poundstone was arrested on a felony warrant for three counts of committing a lewd act on an unidentified girl under the age of 14. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office also stated that Poundstone was charged with endangering two other unidentified girls and two boys. [2] The lewd conduct charges, found to be without basis, were dropped. Even though Poundstone's personal manager, Bonnie Burns of Burns & Burns Management, said, "I know Paula Poundstone well enough to know these charges are 100 percent incorrect," Poundstone pled guilty to charges of felony child endangerment and misdemeanor inflicting injury on a child. Few details were released, but the prosecutor indicated that the charges were a result of an incident in which Poundstone was driving her children while intoxicated. Poundstone was sentenced to five years probation and 180 days in an alcohol rehabilitation program. Following completion of the program, she was granted full custody of her adopted children but permanently lost custody of two other children who were in Poundstone's home as part of the foster care system.[3][4]
[edit] Quotes
| “ | I pride myself on never having fallen for the idea that Barbara Bush was sweet and grandmotherly. I met Barbara Bush and, as I expected, she was a tank with eyes, not a nice person at all and why should that blow anybody away? | ” |
[edit] External links
- Official Website
- Poundstone's first column in Mother Jones
- Los Angeles Times interview by Candace A. Wedlan
- Q & A With Paula Poundstone by Dave Weinthal
- Radio interview with Poundstone on The Sound of Young America:MP3 Link
- [1] Interview on the Feast of Fools (podcast)
- Paula Poundstone at the Internet Movie Database
