An acerbic, self-deprecating and full-lipped (think Mick Jagger or Aerosmith's Steven Tyler) renaissance woman, Sandra Bernhard has offered cutting-edge social commentary since beginning humbly at an open-mike night at Ye Little Club in Beverly Hills in 1975. At the time she was a manicurist to the stars, a vocation she practiced for six years before her comedy stylings enabled her to give up her day job for good. She had made her feature debut in "Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams" (19981), but it was her over-the-top turn as the obsessively neurotic groupie who attempts to kidnap Jerry Lewis in Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy" (1983) that brought her to public prominence. Managing to upstage not only Lewis but also the film's lead Robert De Niro, Bernhard set a standard she has yet to equal on the large screen, though she has garnered much subsequent acclaim for her outrageous live performances and television appearances (like dropping her pants on E! Entertainment's "Howard Stern") not to mention her 1991 PLAYBOY spread and a run as a Ford model.
Bernhard's eclectic, confrontational and largely autobiographical one-woman stage show, "Without You I'm Nothing", was a smash off-Broadway in 1988 but sputtered at the box office in its 1990 screen rendition. A regular performer on TV stand-up comedy specials, she ventured into the land of sitcoms with a six-year (1991-96) recurring role as a married woman who came out as a lesbian on the hit ABC sitcom "Roseanne", offering perhaps her most mainstream exposure to date. Bernhard kept her profile high with guest turns on shows like "Chicago Hope" (CBS) and "Ally McBeal" (Fox) and as host of Comedy Central's "The A-List" (1992-93) and the USA Network's "Reel Wild Cinema with Sandra Bernhard" (1996), but her career seemed stalled until she roared back with "I'm Still Here ... Damn It!", which marked her Broadway debut when it moved uptown in 1998. Featuring a blistering stream of cool, vindictive campy asides and muttered put-downs of everyone from Madonna to Princess Diana, it served notice that Bernhard was back, edgy as ever, ready to reveal almost everything.
- Born:
June 6, 1955 in Flint, Michigan, USA
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Job Titles:
Actor, Comedian, Singer, Author, Producer, Manicurist
Family
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Brother: Mark Bernhard. older
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Daughter: Cecily Yasin Bernhard. born on July 4, 1998
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Father: Jerome Bernhard. divorced from Bernhard s mother after 38 years of marriage; remarried
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Mother: Jeanette Bernhard. divorced from Bernhard s father after 38 years of marriage
Significant Others
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Companion: Ingrid Casares. no longer together
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Companion: Madonna. were friends in 1988; although they appeared publicly on dates they neverY confirmed a relationship with the press, although in his biography of Madonna, Andrew Morton asserts that Madonna privately acknowledged a sexual relationship with Bernhard
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Companion: Patricia Velasquez. had five-year relationship; no longer together
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Companion: Steven Aturo. reportedly dating as of spring 2000
Education
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Charles Ross School of Beauty, Los Angeles, California
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Saguaro High School, Scottsdale, Arizona
Milestones
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1965 Moved to Scottsdale, Arizona at the age of 10 (date approximate)
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1974 Moved to Los Angeles
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1975 Began career as stand-up comic at clubs like the Improv and the Comedy Store while working as a manicurist by day (famous clients included Dyan Cannon and Jaclyn Smith)
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1977 Appeared on episodes of The Richard Pryor Show (NBC)
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1981 Film acting debut in Cheech and Chong s Nice Dreams
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1983 Delivered hilarious turn as obsessive fan of Jerry Lewis in Martin Scorsese s The King of Comedy
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1985 Debut record album, I m Your Woman
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1988 Off-Broadway debut, the one-person show Without You I m Nothing
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1990 Co-wrote and starred in film adaptation of stage show Without You I m Nothing ; marked debut as screenwriter
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1991 Began recurring role of Nancy, a married woman who comes out as a lesbian, on hit TV sitcom Roseanne (ABC)
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1991 Played over-the-top villainess Minerva Mayflower in the abysmal Hudson Hawk
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1992 Hosted Comedy Central s The A-List
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1992 Posed nude for PLAYBOY; was featured on the cover
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1992 Signed a two-year deal with the Ford Models, Inc.
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1995 Portrayed Frieda Dabney in Disney remake of Freaky Friday ( The ABC Family Movie )
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1996 Appeared as a lawyer in a guest appearance on Chicago Hope (CBS)
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1996 Hosted USA Network s Reel Wild Cinema with Sandra Bernhard , a look at the best of the worst B movies
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1996 Played a food-and-sex therapist in Somewhere in the City
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1997 Cast as the operator of a massage parlor in Lover Girl and played a bitchy Beverly Hills producer s wife in Burn, Hollywood, Burn
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1997 Made guest appearance as a savvy lawyer on Ally McBeal (Fox)
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1998 Appeared in the quirky silent film I Woke Up Early the Day I Died , scripted by the late Edward Wood Jr
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1998 Broadway debut, I m Still Here ... Damn It! ; the show had been a smash hit off-Broadway before moving uptown; executive produced that year s HBO special of the same name
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1998 Voiced the regular character of Cassandra on Disney s Hercules , an animated series based on the 1997 film
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2000 Starred in one-person stage show The Love Machine
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2001 Announced as host of the A&E late night talk show The Sandra Bernhard Experience to air in 2002
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2002 Guest-starred as herself on NBC s Will & Grace
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2005 Cast on Showtime s lesbian drama The L Word as a well-known straight author who teaches a class for budding young writers
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2006 Performed off-Broadway in Sandra Bernhard: Everything Bad and Beautiful
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7m Appeared as herself in Sandra Bernhard: Confessions of a Pretty Lady (1993), Unzipped , Catwalk (both 1995) and The Late Shift (HBO, 1996), among other projects
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Grew up in Flint, Michigan
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Spent a year on a kibbutz in Israel after high school graduation