Adam Sandler
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Adam Sandler
Sandler at Cannes, May 2002
Born	Adam Richard Sandler September 9, 1966 (1966-09-09) (age 41) Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.
Occupation	comedian, actor, musician, screenwriter, film producer
Years active	1987—present
Spouse(s)	Jackie Sandler
Official website
Awards won Golden Raspberry Awards Worst Actor 1999 Big Daddy Other Awards Kids' Choice Wannabe Award 2004 Kid's Choice Blimp award 1999 The Waterboy 2000 Big Daddy 2003 Mr. Deeds & Eight Crazy Nights 2005 50 First Dates 2007 ClickGijón International Film Festival best actor 2002 Punch-Drunk LoveBlockbuster Entertainment Awards 1999 The Waterboy 2000 Big DaddyMTV Movie Awards 1996 Happy Gilmore 1998 The Wedding Singer 1999 The Waterboy 2000 Big Daddy 2004 50 First DatesTeen Choice Awards 2001 Choice comedian 2002 Choice comedian 2003 Anger Management 2004 50 First Dates & Choice comedian 2005 Choice comedian 2006 Choice comedianPeople's Choice Awards 2000 Favorite Motion Picture Star in a Comedy 2005 50 First Dates 2006 Favorite Funny Male Star

Adam Richard Sandler (born September 9, 1966) is an American comedian, a Golden Globe-nominated actor, musician, screenwriter and film producer. After becoming a popular Saturday Night Live cast member, he went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over US$100 million at the box office.^[1] Though he is best known for his comedic roles, such as in the films Billy Madison (1995), Happy Gilmore (1996), and Big Daddy (1999), he has also had success in romantic and dramatic roles, such as in the films Punch-Drunk Love (2002), Spanglish (2004), and Reign Over Me (2007).

Biography

Early life

Sandler was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Judy, a nursery school teacher, and Stanley Sandler, an electrical engineer.^[2] He had a Jewish upbringing.^[3] His family moved to Manchester, New Hampshire when he was five. There, he attended Manchester Central High School. He found he was a natural comic, and nurtured his talent while at New York University by performing regularly in clubs and on campuses. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1991, and was also a member of the Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity.

Later in his career, he would often draw on his earliest memories in his comedy and movies. The song "Lunchlady Land" is dedicated to Silvia, the lunchlady at Hayden Dining Hall at New York University. In the movie Click, Sandler goes to Lake Winnipesaukee, the largest lake in New Hampshire where he went to summer camp.

Acting career

In the mid to late 1980s, Sandler played Theo Huxtable's friend, Smitty, on The Cosby Show (1987–1988). He was a performer for the MTV game show Remote Control, on which he made appearances as the characters "Trivia Delinquent" or "Stud Boy". Sandler started performing in clubs early on, taking the stage at his brother's urging when he was only 17. He was then discovered by comedian Dennis Miller, who caught Sandler's act in Los Angeles. Miller immediately recommended him to Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels. Sandler was hired as a writer for SNL in 1990 and became a featured player the following year, quickly making a name for himself by performing amusing original songs on the show, including "The Chanukah Song".^[4] He left the show in 1995 to focus on his acting career.

Sandler's first starring role was in 1989 when he starred in the movie Going Overboard. In 1995, he starred in Billy Madison, in which he plays a grown, though uneducated, man repeating grades 1–12 to earn his father's respect back, along with the right to inherit his father's multi-million-dollar hotel empire. He followed this movie up with other financially successful comedies such as Bulletproof (1996), Happy Gilmore (1996) and The Wedding Singer (1998). He was initially cast in the bachelor-party-themed comedy/thriller Very Bad Things (1998), but had to back out due to his involvement in The Waterboy (1998),^[5] one of his first hits.

Although most of his earlier films were almost universally despised by movie critics, many of his recent films, starting with Punch-Drunk Love (2002), have received almost uniformly positive reviews, leading many movie critics to believe that Sandler possessed considerably more acting ability that they believed had been previously wasted on poorly written scripts and characters with no development.^[6] Audiences have remained faithful to Sandler's slapstick humor to the tune of US$100-million-plus grossing movies. Sandler has moved outside the genre of goofball humor to take on more serious parts such as the aforementioned Punch-Drunk Love (for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe), Spanglish (2004) and Reign Over Me (2007). He also plays a loving father figure in Big Daddy (1999). During filming, he met Jacqueline Samantha Titone -- his future wife and mother of his daughter. Jackie was cast as the charming waitress from The Blarney Stone Bar.

The handprints of Adam Sandler in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

At one point, Sandler was considered for the part that went to Jamie Foxx in Collateral (2004).^[5] He also was one of the finalists along with Jim Carrey and Johnny Depp for the role of Willy Wonka in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), but in the end Depp got the role.^[5] He returned to more dramatic fare with Mike Binder's Reign Over Me (2007), a drama about a man who lost his entire family in 9/11 and rekindles a friendship with his old college roommate (played by Don Cheadle). He starred in the movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007), where he stars alongside Kevin James as a New York City fireman pretending to be gay keep up an insurance scam, so his best friend's children can have benefits. Sandler's most recent film is You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008), a comedy about a Mossad agent who fakes his own death and moves to the United States to become a hair stylist. The film was released on June 6.^[7] The film was written by Sandler, The 40-Year-Old Virgin writer-director Judd Apatow (who was an old roommate of Sandler's when both were starting out), and Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog creator Robert Smigel and was directed by Happy Gilmore director Dennis Dugan.

"Like Will Ferrell, Sandler has layers of tenderness under layers of irony under layers of tenderness — plus a floating anger like Jupiter’s great red spot," wrote David Edelstein of New York magazine in a review of You Don't Mess with the Zohan. "Some performers become stars because we can read them instantly, others — like Sandler — because we never tire of trying to get a fix on them."^[8]

He recently finished production on Bedtime Stories (2008), a fantasy film directed by Bringing Down the House director Adam Shankman about a stressed real estate developer whose bedtime stories he reads to his niece and nephew begin to come true, which will mark Sandler's first family film and first film under the Walt Disney banner.^[9] Keri Russell and English comedian Russell Brand co-star and the film is set to be released on Christmas of 2008.

His next film will be Judd Apatow's third directorial feature Funny People. The film will star him and Seth Rogen as a pair of stand up comedians, and filming is set to begin in mid-September of 2008 with a tentative release date of July 31, 2009, depending on the expected Screen Actors Strike of 2008.^[10] Other co-stars include Eric Bana and Apatow's wife Leslie Mann. Sandler will play a more successful mentor of sorts to Rogen's character.^[11] The movie will contain more dramatic elements than Apatow's previous efforts.^[12]

Sandler has also been long-rumored to co-star with Michael Madsen in Quentin Tarantino's upcoming World War II saga Inglorious Bastards.^[13] In June 2007, it was announced that his production company, Happy Madison, had made a preemptive acquisition for Mitch Albom's screenwriting debut.^[14]

Cameos and other work

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (April 2008)

Sandler reads 'An Ode to Bob' during his Price is Right appearance

Sandler made a cameo appearance on an episode of The Price Is Right during the "Happy Gilmore Showcase". Host Bob Barker appeared in the movie Happy Gilmore which featured a famous fight scene with Sandler's character (where Barker wins). He also appeared on Bob Barker's tribute show on May 17, 2007, in which he read a poem to Bob and congratulated him on his retirement from TPIR. Coincidentally, there is an associate producer on The Price is Right named Adam Sandler. He is not related.

Sandler cameoed as a special audience member in an episode of The Showbiz Show with David Spade and as the feature guest on the final episode of John McEnroe's eponymous CNBC talk show, airing in late 2004. McEnroe has appeared in three of Sandler's movies, all three times as himself (Mr. Deeds, Anger Management, and You Don't Mess with the Zohan). In The Animal, starring Rob Schneider, Sandler appears briefly as Schneider's "'You can do it' Guy" from The Waterboy.

On March 20, 2007, Sandler was scheduled to be a guest on The Late Show with David Letterman. However, due to a minor illness, Letterman could not host the show and Sandler filled in as host.

On June 13, 2007, Sandler appeared and won the "Man's Man Award" on the Spike TV Guys' Choice Awards.

On July 17, 2008, Sandler introduced The Who by playing a parody of their song Magic Bus during the 2008 VH1 Rock Honors.

Sandler and Rob Schneider make frequent cameos in each other's movies:

• The Hot Chick, where Schneider stars, Sandler plays the spacey drummer
• The Animal, where Schneider stars, Sandler played the townie
• Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, where Schneider stars, Sandler plays one of the deceased gigolos.
• The Longest Yard, where Sandler stars, Schneider suggests to the prisoners around him that they hug in the showers. Even though he says similar lines as the Townie, he is credited as 'Punky' in this movie.
• Little Nicky, where Sandler stars, Schneider is an angry man (Townie) in riot based on the same character from The Waterboy.
• Big Daddy, where Sandler stars, Schneider plays a delivery guy.
• Mr. Deeds, where Sandler stars, Schneider plays the delivery man from Big Daddy; he catches a cat that Sandler shoots from a burning building trying to save it.
• 50 First Dates, where Sandler stars, Schneider plays a Hawaiian friend of Adam's character with one eye and is the presiding minister at his wedding.
• The Waterboy, where Sandler stars, Schneider plays an angry Townie.
• Eight Crazy Nights, where Sandler stars, Schneider voices an Asian waiter who doesn't like Sandler's character, and also provides the narration.
• Click, where Sandler stars, Schneider plays Prince Habeeboo, a potential foreign customer for Sandler's architect firm.
• I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, where Sandler stars, Schneider plays the Asian minister presiding at Chuck and Larry's wedding.
• You Don't Mess with the Zohan, where Sandler stars, Schneider plays a Palestinian cab driver and sleeper cell terrorist who recognizes Zohan in New York and attempts to assassinate him.

Personal life

On June 22, 2003, Sandler married actress Jacqueline Samantha Titone, and they are the parents of Sadie Madison Sandler, born May 6, 2006, at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.^[15] Sandler lives with his family in Los Angeles, though he also has a home in New York. He announced on May 21, 2008 on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that his wife is expecting another child.^[16]

Actor Thomas Wilson of Back to the Future fame has stated that Sandler is the "nicest famous guy he knows".^[17]

Sandler, a Republican^[18], performed at the 2004 Republican National Convention,^[19] and has contributed money to Rudy Giuliani's 2008 Presidential campaign.^[20]

In October 2007, he made a million-dollar donation to the Boys and Girls Club in his hometown, Manchester, NH.^[21]

Filmography

Films

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Television

Discography

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Adam Sandler

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Adam Sandler

• Official website
• Adam Sandler at the Internet Movie Database
• Adam Sandler fanlisting
• Adam Sandler's Charity Work
• Adam Sandler at MySpace (music)
• Adam Sandler "Serious Actor"