name	Stephen Merchant
birth name	Stephen James Merchant
birth date	November 24, 1974
birth place	Bristol, England
occupation	ActorDirectorWriterRadio presenter Comedian
yearsactive	1998–present
height	6 ft 7 in }}

Stephen James Merchant (born 24 November 1974) is an English writer, director, radio presenter, comedian, and actor. He is best known for his collaborations with Ricky Gervais, as the co-writer and co-director of the popular British sitcom ''The Office,'' as the co-writer, co-director and a co-star of ''Extras'', and as the co-host of ''The Ricky Gervais Show'' in its radio, podcast, audiobook and television-show forms. ''The Ricky Gervais Show'' in radio form has won a bronze Sony Award. He is also due to be appearing in the new TV series ''Life's Too Short''. He voiced the character Wheatley in the popular 2011 video game ''Portal 2''.

Early life

Merchant was born in Bristol, England, the son of Jane Elaine (née Hibbs), a nursery nurse, and Ronald John Merchant, an insurance representative. He attended Hanham High School. As he has described in Xfm London shows and podcasts, Merchant was a very shy child, tending to focus more on school work as opposed to sport. His school yearbook predicted that he would enjoy success. Merchant has also described his relatively normal childhood, which is often contrasted with that of his friend Karl Pilkington. Merchant is a graduate of the University of Warwick, and a former film reviewer on the student radio station, Radio Warwick, where he began his broadcasting career. The station's 1995/96 yearbook tipped him for great things: Members of Merchant's "posse" included film critic James King, Dan Warren, Neil the Maskell and Geraint the Welshman. Recently, a number of tapes of "The Steve Show", recorded at the time, have been rediscovered and are being distributed on various Merchant fansites. He graduated with a first class degree in Film and Literature in 1996.

Career

Pre-2001

Merchant began his career performing stand-up comedy at Bristol's Comedy Box, where, he recalls, "The first week I did really well ...The second week I died on my arse. I realised that stand-up was not that easy after all." He also appeared as a contestant on a 1997 episode of the TV game show ''Blockbusters'' and worked for a short time as a DJ for Radio Caroline.

Merchant met Ricky Gervais for the first time in 1997, when Gervais (then in the position of "Head of Speech" at the London radio station Xfm) hired Merchant as his assistant. (Gervais said later that he had called Merchant for an interview simply because it was the first CV handed to him.) Merchant and Gervais hosted a Saturday afternoon radio show together from January through to August 1998, when both of them left XFM as it was bought by the Capital Radio Group. In the same year, Merchant was a finalist at the Daily Telegraph Open Mic Awards.

Merchant did a total of 7 years on XFM 104.9. The Saturday show never had a large audience; Gervais says "It's a tin pot radio station... It's not even the biggest radio station in the building." Merchant created the features 'Hip Hop Hooray', 'Make Ricky Gervais laugh' and 'Song for the Ladies.'

After leaving XFM, Merchant began a production course at the BBC. As part of his coursework, he enlisted Gervais to perform in a 30-minute short film, "Seedy Boss," which became the earliest inspiration for their sitcom ''The Office''. They collaborated on a sitcom pilot called ''Golden Years'' featuring a manager suffering a mid-life crisis; the pilot aired on Channel 4's ''Comedy Lab'' series in September 1998, but failed to find further success.

2001–03 (''The Office'' and return to XFM)

In summer 2001, BBC Two aired the first series of ''The Office'', co-written and co-directed by Merchant and Gervais and starring the latter as paper sales office manager David Brent; the show initially received low ratings. Beginning in September, Merchant and Gervais returned to Xfm as co-hosts of ''The Ricky Gervais Show'', another Saturday afternoon program, which led to their fruitful relationship with producer Karl Pilkington.

They took a break from the radio show in mid-2002 in order to film the second series of ''The Office'', which aired that autumn; in addition to writing and directing the show, Merchant made a cameo performance in the episode "Charity" as a friend of Gareth Keenan's character known by the name Oggy or Ogmonster. (Merchant's father also appears in multiple episodes as an office handyman named Gordon.) Merchant also directed a sitcom pilot called ''The Last Chancers'', which aired on ''Comedy Lab'' in November 2002 and became a five-part series broadcast in December on E4.

Merchant and Gervais continued to host ''The Ricky Gervais Show'' through 2003, taking another break to film the ''Office'' Christmas special, which aired that December. The radio show went off the air indefinitely in January 2004. During 2004, Merchant appeared in a recurring role as a chef on ''Garth Marenghi's Darkplace'' and in a cameo on ''Green Wing'', and served as a script associate on the Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker sitcom ''Nathan Barley''. The same year, ''The Office'' aired in the U.S to critical acclaim. It went on to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy which both Merchant and Gervais accepted.

This was followed in 2005 by a 4th series of the radio show, consisting of six episodes.

US series of ''The Office''

In March 2005, the American version of ''The Office'' premiered, with Merchant and Gervais credited as executive producers. They would later co-write the third-season episode "The Convict", and Merchant would direct the fifth-season episode "Customer Survey".

Podcast series

In December 2005, with sponsorship by ''The Guardian'', Merchant, Gervais and Pilkington began recording a weekly podcast (also called ''The Ricky Gervais Show''). Throughout its first series (through 20 February 2006), the podcast was consistently ranked the most popular in the world, and was certified as the most-downloaded of all time by Guinness World Records. Two more series and three special instalments (the "Podfather Trilogy") were recorded in 2006, with the final episode released on Christmas Eve. In late 2008, they recorded four more podcasts and began a series of audiobooks examining Pilkington's perspective on various subjects.

''Extras''

In July 2005, following a brief return of the XFM radio show (filling in for Adam and Joe), Gervais and Merchant's new sitcom ''Extras'' premiered on BBC2. The series features Merchant in a supporting role as Darren Lamb, the incompetent agent to struggling actor Andy Millman, played by Gervais. Series 2 of ''Extras'' aired in late 2006, followed by a Christmas special in December 2007; all three instalments aired on HBO in the United States. Merchant won a 2006 British Comedy Award for Best TV Actor for his performance as Lamb.

''The Steve Show''

In January 2007, Merchant began hosting his own radio show on BBC 6 Music, airing weekly on Sunday afternoons. Instead of comedy, ''The Steve Show'' focused on music and particularly "new music," defined by Merchant as "music you've not heard before." Many of the songs on the show were suggested by listeners or co-presenters. In addition to Merchant, the show featured several of his friends, including his housemate Dan, his childhood friend Harry, and actor Rufus Gerrard-Wright (who also appeared in an episode of ''Extras''). A spring search for a "she-J" resulted in the addition of former ''Byker Grove'' actor Sammy T. Dobson joining the ensemble. "The Steve Show" aired for four seasons and concluded in May 2009; the presenters continue to contribute to a music blog called the Steve Show Posse.

''Stand-up''

Merchant will begin his first nationwide tour of the UK, ''Hello Ladies...'', in September 2011, with a stop in New York as well.

Other work

Merchant has played small roles in the films ''Hot Fuzz'' (2007), ''Run Fatboy Run'' (2007), and ''The Invention of Lying'' (2009), the latter starring Ricky Gervais. He has a supporting role in the 2009 film ''Tooth Fairy''. On television, Merchant made a cameo appearance in a non-speaking role on the sixth season premiere of ''24''; he also starred as a sports commentator in the unaired pilot ''No Skillz''. Additionally, Merchant provides the voice-over in 2009 advertisements for Barclays and Waterstone's.

In 2009, Merchant and Gervais collaborated on the film ''Cemetery Junction'', set in working-class England in the 1970s. The film was released in April 2010 to generally mixed to positive reviews.

In September 2010, Merchant produced a television show alongside Ricky Gervais starring Karl Pilkington called ''An Idiot Abroad''.

In July 2010, filming finished for the pilot of ''Life's Too Short'', written by Ricky Gervais and Merchant, who will both cameo alongside the show's star, Warwick Davis. In 2011, he lent his voice to the CGI film ''Gnomeo and Juliet'', and had a role in the Farrelly brothers' comedy ''Hall Pass''.

In January 2011, Stephen appeared at the 'Free Fringe Benefit' at the Bloomsbury Theatre, London. A show of stand-up to benefit the Free Fringe at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, alongside comedians Jeremy Hardy, Michael Legge, Robin Ince, Mitch Benn, Isy Suttie, Bennett Arron, Andy Zaltzman and founder Peter Buckley Hill. He also stated on the recent free podcast ''The Ricky Gervais Guide to...Comic Relief'' that he will be touring his first solo stand up tour later in the year.

On ''Film 2011'''s Questionnaire feature, broadcast on 2 March 2011, Merchant described his favourite film as ''The Apartment'' (1960), his guilty pleasure as ''Con Air'' (1997), the film he cried at as ''The Bridges of Madison County'', and the film he didn't get as ''The Lord of the Rings'' film trilogy.

Merchant provides the voice of Wheatley in Valve's 2011 video game ''Portal 2'', a role which earned him widespread acclaim among reviewers. While he states his work on the project as "exhausting", Merchant is also "very pleased by the response people have had to it. What I was really pleased by how people seemed to respond to it in the way they do with a movie they've enjoyed, or a TV show they've enjoyed."

Filmography

Film

Year	Film	Role	Notes
2007	''Hot Fuzz''	Peter Ian Staker
2007	''Run Fatboy Run''	Man with Broken Leg
2009	''The Invention of Lying''	Man at the Door
2010		Tracy
2010		Dougie Boden	Also Writer/Director
2010	''Jackboots on Whitehall''	Tom	Voice Only
2010		Holyrood Footman
2011		Gary
2011	''Gnomeo and Juliet''	Paris	Voice Only
2012	''Movie 43''	Donald

Television

Year	Show	Role	Notes
2002	''The Office''	The Ogg Monster	Writer/Director
2004	''Garth Marenghi's Darkplace''	Chef	Episode 2 – Cameo
2004	''Green Wing''	Lab Technician	Episode 6 – Cameo
2005	''Extras''	Darren Lamb	Writer/Director
2010–	''An Idiot Abroad''	Himself
2010–		Himself
2011	''Life's Too Short''	Version Of Himself	Writer/Director
2011	''Ronnie Corbett's Comedy Britain''	Himself	Guest

Game

Year	Game	Role	Notes
2011	''Portal 2''		Voice Only

Awards

!Awarding Body/Event	!Awarded
! BAFTA Awards		* 2002 Situation Comedy Award ''The Office''	* 2003 Situation Comedy Award ''The Office''	* 2004 Situation Comedy Award ''The Office''
! British Comedy Award		* 2006 Best TV Comedy Actor ''Extras''
! Broadcasting Press Guild		* 2002 Best Writer ''The Office''	* 2003 Best Writer ''The Office''
! Emmy		* 2006 Outstanding Comedy Series ''The Office''
! WGA Award		* 2007 Best Comedy Series ''The Office''

Personal life

Merchant spent two years dating digital advertising producer Claire Jones, although their relationship reportedly ended in 2009. Merchant is an atheist.

Appearance

Merchant's considerable height (6ft 7in; 2.01 m) has been a source of humour and teasing throughout his life. He made a cameo appearance in ''The Office'', playing a character nicknamed the Ogg-Monster, whom David Brent called "a big lanky goggle-eyed freak". His height, and also dance moves, have attracted comments from several sources. The ''Daily Mail'' newspaper described him as a "giant albatross hopping on stilts" as he danced in a London pub (although Merchant denied this during an episode of the ''Ricky Gervais Show'', stating that he did not take to the dance floor on that occasion). While discussing what the Daily Mail had said on the show, friend and collaborator Ricky Gervais has likened him to an "upright lizard being given electro-shock treatment" and a "stick insect with glasses" or ''Beaker'' from ''The Muppet Show''. Radio producer and co-host of Merchant, Karl Pilkington, has described his moves as a "bit of weird art" in the past, while British comic and broadcaster Russell Brand has likened him to a "graceful grasshopper". Merchant has commented that he prefers to liken himself to fellow tall man and English football player, Peter Crouch who is also six foot seven inches. Merchant impersonated Crouch in a BBC sketch broadcast as part of the pre-match build-up to England's opening game at the 2006 World Cup.

References

External links

Stephan Merchant's official website

Steve's BBC 6Music site

The Steve Show's post-6Music site

Stephen interviewed on BBC Radio Five Live

6Music homepage

Xfm: Stephen Merchant Biography

RaW: Radio Warwick

''Tall man, taller success story'' – interview in ''The Telegraph'' – 8 August 2005

Interview with Barbara Ellen in The Observer Magazine – 5 November 2006

Radar Online interview – 11 January 2007

An Englishman abroad

Stephen Merchant interview

Stephen Merchant interviewed by Sophie Elmhirst on ''New Statesman''.

Category:1974 births Category:Alumni of the University of Warwick Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Emmy Award winners Category:English comedy writers Category:English podcasters Category:English radio DJs Category:English radio personalities Category:English television actors Category:English television directors Category:English television producers Category:English television writers Category:English video game actors Category:English voice actors Category:Living people Category:The Office (U.S. TV series) Category:People from Bristol Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners Category:English stand-up comedians Category:English atheists

be:Стывен Мерчэнт da:Stephen Merchant de:Stephen Merchant nl:Stephen Merchant no:Stephen Merchant pt:Stephen Merchant ru:Мерчант, Стивен sv:Stephen Merchant

name	Jimmy Kimmel
birth name	James Christian Kimmel
birth date	November 13, 1967
birth place	Brooklyn, New York, USA
medium	Radio, television, film
nationality	American
active	1989–present
genre	Observational comedy, Current events, Insult comedy
subject	American culture, Everyday life, Celebrities
influences	David Letterman, Howard Stern
spouse	Gina Kimmel (1988–2003) (divorced); 2 children
domesticpartner	Sarah Silverman (2002–2007; 2008–2009) Molly McNearney (2009–present)
notable work	Creator and Host of ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' (ABC) Creator and Co-Host of ''The Man Show''co-host of ''Win Ben Stein's Money'' (Comedy Central)co-host of ''Crank Yankers''

}} James Christian "Jimmy" Kimmel (born November 13, 1967) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, voice artist and television host. He is the host of ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'', a late-night talk show that airs on ABC. Prior to that, Kimmel was best known as the co-host of Comedy Central's ''The Man Show'' and ''Win Ben Stein's Money''. Kimmel is also a television producer, having produced shows such as ''Crank Yankers'', ''Sports Show with Norm Macdonald'', and ''The Andy Milonakis Show''.

Early life

Kimmel was born in the Mill Basin neighborhood of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, the eldest of three children of Joann (née Iacono), a homemaker, and James Kimmel, an IBM executive. He is Roman Catholic and, as a child, served as an altar boy. Kimmel is of German and Irish descent on his father’s side and Italian descent on his mother’s side. His uncle, Frank Potenza, appeared on ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' as a regular from 2003 until his death in 2011.

The family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, when he was nine years old. He graduated from Ed W. Clark High School and then attended University of Nevada, Las Vegas for one year before attending Arizona State University for two years without completing a degree.

Career

Radio career

Kimmel began working in the radio industry while in high school, hosting a Sunday night interview show on UNLV's college station KUNV. While attending Arizona State University, he became a popular caller to the KZZP-FM afternoon show hosted by radio personalities Mike Elliott and Kent Voss in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1989, Kimmel landed his first paying job alongside Voss as morning drive co-host of ''The Me and Him Show'' at KZOK-FM in Seattle, Washington. Ten months later, Kimmel and Voss were fired by KZOK (for reasons unknown) and were fired again a year later at WRBQ-FM in Tampa, Florida. Kimmel went from Tampa to host his own show at KCMJ in Palm Springs, California, where Kimmel convinced a young Carson Daly to drop out of college and become his intern. After a morning stint at KRQQ In Tucson, Arizona, Kimmel landed at KROQ-FM in Los Angeles, California. He spent five years as "Jimmy The Sports Guy" for the Kevin and Bean morning show. During this time he met and befriended a struggling comedian named Adam Carolla.

Comedy Central

Kimmel began his television career as the comedic counterpart to Ben Stein on the game show ''Win Ben Stein's Money'', which began airing on Comedy Central in 1997. His quick wit and loutish everyman personality were counterpoints to Stein's monotone performing style and patrician demeanor. The combination earned the pair an Emmy award for Best Game Show Host.

In 1999, during his time with ''Win Ben Stein's Money'', Kimmel was also co-host with Adam Carolla and co-creator (with Daniel Kellison) of Comedy Central's ''The Man Show''. Kimmel permanently left ''Win Ben Stein's Money'' in 2001, replaced by comedian Nancy Pimental, who was eventually replaced by Kimmel's cousin Sal Iacono. ''The Man Show'''s success allowed Kimmel, Carolla and Kellison to create and produce, under the banner Jackhole Industries, ''Crank Yankers'' for Comedy Central (on which Kimmel plays the characters "Elmer Higgins", "Terrence Catheter", "The Nudge", "Karl Malone" and himself), and later ''The Andy Milonakis Show'' for MTV2. Kimmel also produced and co-wrote the feature film ''Windy City Heat'', which won the Comedia Award for Best Film at the Montreal Comedy Festival.

''Jimmy Kimmel Live!''

In January 2003, Kimmel permanently left ''The Man Show'' to host his own late-night talk show, ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' on ABC. ''Jimmy Kimmel Live'' was briefly also broadcast on Irish digital TV channel 3e. In the April 2007 issue of Stuffmagazine.com, Kimmel was named the "biggest badass on TV". Kimmel said it was an honor but clearly a mistake.

Since the show's second season, it has not actually been broadcast live. This is due to an incident during the 2004 NBA Finals in Detroit, when Kimmel appeared on ABC's halftime show to make an on-air plug for his show. He suggested that if the Detroit Pistons defeated the Los Angeles Lakers, "they're gonna burn the city of Detroit down ... and it's not worth it." Officials with Detroit's ABC affiliate, WXYZ-TV, immediately announced that night's show would not air on the station. Hours later, ABC officials pulled that night's show from the entire network. Kimmel later apologized. The incident led ABC officials to force Kimmel to tape his show an hour before it airs in most of the country to check for offending content.

Kimmel usually ends his show with, "My apologies to Matt Damon, we ran out of time." When Matt Damon did actually appear on the show to be interviewed, he walked in and sat down only to be told just a few seconds later by Kimmel, "Sorry, but once again we are completely out of time." Damon seemed to become angry.

In February 2008 Kimmel showed a mock music video with a panoply of stars called, "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck", as "revenge" after his then-girlfriend Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon recorded a similar video, "I'm Fucking Matt Damon". Silverman's video originally aired on ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'', and became an "instant YouTube sensation." Kimmel's "revenge" video featured himself, Ben Affleck, and a large lineup of stars, particularly in scenes spoofing the 1985 "We Are the World" video: Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, Cameron Diaz, Robin Williams, Harrison Ford, Dominic Monaghan, Benji Madden and Joel Madden from Good Charlotte, Lance Bass, Macy Gray, Josh Groban, Huey Lewis, Perry Farrell, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Pete Wentz, Meat Loaf, Rebecca Romijn, Christina Applegate, Dom Joly, Mike Shinoda, Lauren Conrad, and Joan Jett, among others. After this Jimmy's sidekick, Guillermo, appeared in a spoof of The Bourne Ultimatum, which starred Damon. He was then chased down by Damon as Matt cursed about Kimmel being behind all this. Guillermo also stopped Damon on the red carpet one time and before he could finish the interview he said, "Sorry we are out of time." The most recent encounter was titled "The Handsome Men's Club" which featured Kimmel, along with the "Handsome Men", who were: Matthew McConaughey, Rob Lowe, Lenny Kravitz, Patrick Dempsey, Sting, Keith Urban, John Krasinski, Ethan Hawke, Josh Hartnett, Tony Romo, Ted Danson, Taye Diggs, Gilles Marini, and Ben Affleck, speaking about being handsome and all the jobs that come with it. At the end of the skit Kimmel has a door slammed in his face by none other than Matt Damon, stating that they had run out of time and then Damon continues with a sinister laugh. Jennifer Garner also makes a surprise appearance.

As a tradition, celebrities voted off ''Dancing with the Stars'' appear on ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'', causing Kimmel to describe himself as "the three-headed dog the stars must pass on their way to No-Dancing Hell". In the 2008 season of his show, Kimmel started another tradition of ceremonially burning the dancers' shoes after they were voted off ''DWTS''.

Other television work

In Spring 1996, Kimmel appeared as "Jimmy the Fox Guy" in promos on the Fox network.

Kimmel's other television work included being the on-air football prognosticator for ''Fox NFL Sunday'' for four years. He has had numerous appearances on other talk shows including, but not limited to, ''Live with Regis and Kelly'', ''The Howard Stern Show'', ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show'', and ''The Late Show with David Letterman''. Kimmel has appeared on ''The Late Show'' five times, most recently on April 21, 2008. Kimmel served as roastmaster for the New York Friars' Club Roast of Hugh Hefner and Comedy Central Roasts of ''Pamela Anderson''. He has appeared on ABC's Dancing with the Stars, along with his parking lot security guard Guillermo.

In August 2006, ABC announced that Jimmy Kimmel would be the host of their new game show ''Set for Life''. The show debuted on July 20, 2007. On April 6, 2007, Kimmel filled in for Larry King on ''Larry King Live''. That particular show was about the paparazzi and Kimmel reproached Emily Gould, an editor from Gawker.com, about the web site's alleged stalking of celebrities. On July 8, 2007, Kimmel managed the National League in the 2007 Taco Bell All-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game in San Francisco. He played in the game in 2004 and 2006 (Houston and Pittsburgh). On July 11, 2007, Kimmel along with basketball player LeBron James, hosted the 2007 ''ESPY Awards''. The show aired on ESPN on July 15, 2007. Kimmel hosted the American Music Awards on ABC four times, in 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008.

Kimmel guest hosted ''Live with Regis and Kelly'' during the week of October 22, 2007 – October 26, 2007, commuting every day between New York and Los Angeles. In the process, he broke the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest distance () travelled in one work week.

Kimmel has performed in several animated films, often voicing dogs. His voice appeared in ''Garfield'' and ''Road Trip'', and he portrayed Death's Dog in the ''Family Guy'' episode "Mr. Saturday Knight"; ''Family Guy'' creator Seth McFarlane later presented Kimmel with a figurine of his character on ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!''. Kimmel also did voice work for ''Robot Chicken''. Kimmel's cousin "Sal" (Sal Iacono) has accepted and won a wrestling match with WWE superstar Santino Marella. On January 14, 2010, in the midst of the 2010 Tonight Show host and time slot conflict, Kimmel was the special guest of Jay Leno on ''The Jay Leno Show'''s "10 at 10" segment. Kimmel derided Leno in front of a live studio audience for taking back the 11:35 pm time slot from Conan O'Brien, and repeatedly insulted Leno. He ended the segment with a plea that Leno "leave our shows alone," as Kimmel and O'Brien had "kids" while Leno only had "cars".

Kimmel also made a brief appearance in the TV commercial "There's A Soldier In All Of Us" promoting the 2010 video game ''Call of Duty: Black Ops'', along with Kobe Bryant. He is seen taking cover from bullets, then firing an RPG-7 with the words ''PROUD N00b'' on it, with the aftershock from the weapon sending him tumbling backwards.

Personal life

Kimmel and his then fiancée, Gina, married in June 1988. They have two children, Katie (born 1991) and Kevin (born 1993). Katie Kimmel is an art student in Chicago. The marriage ended in separation in early 2002. Kimmel then dated comedian Sarah Silverman for five years, splitting with her in March 2009. He started dating current girlfriend, Molly McNearney, in October 2009. McNearney is also a co-head writer for ''Jimmy Kimmel Live''.

Kimmel plays the bass clarinet. He got a chance to showcase his talent during a July 20, 2008, concert in Costa Mesa, California, featuring the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, when he took the stage and played bass clarinet on their hit song "The Impression That I Get."

Kimmel has spoken publicly of being a narcoleptic.

Kimmel co-founded the annual LA Feast of San Gennaro, which celebrates Italian culture through entertainment, music and cuisine. The festival also honors outstanding members of the Los Angeles community and raises funds to aid needy children and families in the city. He hosted Los Angeles' eighth annual feast of San Gennaro from September 28 to 30, 2009. Kimmel served as Master of Ceremonies for the National Italian American Foundation's 34th Anniversary Gala in Washington, D.C., on October 24, 2009.

He resides across the street from actor John Krasinski (known for his role as Jim Halpert on ''The Office'') and his wife, actress Emily Blunt.

Awards

References

External links

ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live website

JimmyKimmel.Net

Jimmy Kimmel appears on Michael Eisner's talkshow on CNBC

Jimmy Kimmel interview

Appearance on HGTV's ''Designer's Challenge''

Jimmy is Maxim's #2 Dudeliest Dude 2007

Category:1967 births Category:Actors from New York City Category:American comedians Category:American film actors Category:American game show hosts Category:American radio personalities Category:American television actors Category:American television producers Category:American television writers Category:American television talk show hosts Category:American people of German descent Category:American people of Italian descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:Living people Category:People from Brooklyn Category:Radio personalities from the Las Vegas Valley Category:University of Nevada, Las Vegas alumni

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name	Stephen Hawking
birth name	Stephen William Hawking
birth date	January 08, 1942
birth place	Oxford, England, United Kingdom
residence	United Kingdom
nationality	British
fields
workplaces
alma mater
doctoral advisor	Dennis Sciama
academic advisors	Robert Berman
known for
influences
awards
spouse
footnotes	}}

Stephen William Hawking, (born 8 January 1942) is a British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author. His key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding gravitational singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation (or sometimes as Bekenstein–Hawking radiation).

He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009. Subsequently, he became research director at the university's Centre for Theoretical Cosmology.

Hawking has a motor neurone disease related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a condition that has progressed over the years. He is now almost completely paralysed and communicates through a speech generating device. He has been married twice and has three children. Hawking has achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include ''A Brief History of Time'', which stayed on the British ''Sunday Times'' best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

Early life and education

Stephen Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 to Frank Hawking, a research biologist, and Isobel Hawking. He has two younger sisters, Philippa and Mary, and an adopted brother, Edward. Although Hawking's parents were living in North London, he was born in Oxford as his parents felt it was safer to stay in Oxford for the later stages of the pregnancy. (London was under attack at the time by the Luftwaffe).

When his father became head of the division of parasitology at the National Institute for Medical Research in 1950, Hawking and his family moved to St Albans, Hertfordshire. Hawking attended St Albans High School for Girls from 1950 to 1953 (At that time, boys could attend the girls' school until the age of 10). and then from the age of 11, he attended St Albans School, where he was a good, but not exceptional, student.

Inspired by his mathematics teacher, Hawking originally wanted to study the subject at university. However, Hawking's father wanted him to apply to University College, Oxford, where his father had attended. As University College did not have a mathematics fellow at that time, applications were not accepted from students who wished to study that discipline. Hawking therefore applied to read natural sciences with an emphasis in Physics. He was accepted and gained a scholarship. While at Oxford, he coxed a rowing team, which, he stated, helped relieve his immense boredom at the university. His physics tutor, Robert Berman, later said "It was only necessary for him to know that something could be done, and he could do it without looking to see how other people did it. ... his mind was completely different from all of his contemporaries".

Hawking's unimpressive study habits resulted in a final examination score on the borderline between first and second class honours, making an "oral examination" necessary. Berman said of the oral examination: "And of course the examiners then were intelligent enough to realize they were talking to someone far more clever than most of themselves". After receiving his B.A. degree at Oxford in 1962, he left for graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Career

1962-1975

Although Hawking started developing symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis as soon as he arrived at Cambridge and did not distinguish himself in his first two years at cambridge, he returned to working on his PhD after the disease had stabilised and with the help of his doctoral tutor, Dennis William Sciama.

When Hawking began his graduate studies In the 1960s, there was much debate in the physics community about the opposing theories of the creation of the universe: big bang, and steady state. Hawking and his Cambridge friend and colleague, Roger Penrose, showed in 1970 that if the universe obeys general relativity and if the universe fits any of the Friedmann models, then the universe must have began as a singularity. This work showed that, far from being mathematical curiosities which appear only in special cases, singularities are a fairly generic feature of general relativity.

Hawking was elected one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society in 1974, and in the same year he accepted the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar visiting professorship at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) to work with his friend, Kip Thorne, who was a faculty member there. He continues to have ties with Caltech, spending a month each year there since 1992.

Hawking's work with Brandon Carter, Werner Israel and D. Robinson, strongly supported John Wheeler's no-hair theorem – that any black hole is fully described by the three properties of mass, angular momentum, and electric charge. Following analysis of gamma ray emissions, Hawking suggested that after the Big Bang, primordial miniature black holes were formed. With Bardeen and Carter, he proposed the four laws of black hole mechanics, drawing an analogy with thermodynamics. In 1974, he calculated that black holes should thermally create and emit subatomic particles, known today as Bekenstein-Hawking radiation, until they exhaust their energy and evaporate.

1975-present

In collaboration with Jim Hartle, Hawking developed a model in which the universe had no boundary in space-time, replacing the initial singularity of the classical Big Bang models with a region akin to the North Pole: one cannot travel north of the North Pole, as there is no boundary. While originally the no-boundary proposal predicted a closed universe, discussions with Neil Turok led to the realisation that the no-boundary proposal is also consistent with a universe which is not closed.

Along with Thomas Hertog at CERN, in 2006 Hawking proposed a theory of "top-down cosmology", which says that the universe had no unique initial state, and therefore it is inappropriate for physicists to attempt to formulate a theory that predicts the universe's current configuration from one particular initial state. Top-down cosmology posits that in some sense, the present "selects" the past from a superposition of many possible histories. In doing so, the theory suggests a possible resolution of the fine-tuning question.

Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for 30 years, taking up the post in 1979 and retiring on 1 October 2009. Subsequently, he became research director at the university's Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. He is also a fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and a distinguished research chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.

Thorne–Hawking–Preskill bet

In 1997 Hawking made a public scientific wager with Thorne and John Preskill of Caltech concerning the black hole information paradox. Thorne and Hawking argued that since general relativity made it impossible for black holes to radiate, and lose information, the mass-energy and information carried by Hawking Radiation must be "new", and must not originate from inside the black hole event horizon. Since this contradicted the idea under quantum mechanics of microcausality, quantum mechanics would need to be rewritten. Preskill argued the opposite, that since quantum mechanics suggests that the information emitted by a black hole relates to information that fell in at an earlier time, the view of black holes given by general relativity must be modified in some way. The winner of the bet was to receive an encyclopedia of the loser's choice, from which information may be accessed.

In 2004, Hawking announced that he was conceding the bet, and that he now believed that black hole horizons should fluctuate and leak information, in doing so providing Preskill with a copy of ''Total Baseball''. Comparing the useless information obtainable from a black hole to "burning an encyclopedia", Hawking commented, "I gave John an encyclopedia of baseball, but maybe I should just have given him the ashes".

Recognition

Acclaim

On 19 December 2007, a statue of Hawking by artist Ian Walters was unveiled at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, University of Cambridge. The Stephen W. Hawking Science Museum in San Salvador, El Salvador, is named in honour of Stephen Hawking, citing his scientific distinction and perseverance in dealing with adversity. The Stephen Hawking Building in Cambridge opened on 17 April 2007. The building belongs to Gonville and Caius College and is used as an undergraduate accommodation and conference facility.

Awards and honours

1975 Eddington Medal 1976 Hughes Medal of the Royal Society 1979 Albert Einstein Medal 1981 Franklin Medal 1982 Order of the British Empire (Commander) 1985 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society 1986 Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences 1988 Wolf Prize in Physics 1989 Companion of Honour 1999 Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society 2003 Michelson Morley Award of Case Western Reserve University 2006 Copley Medal of the Royal Society 2008 Fonseca Prize of the University of Santiago de Compostela 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the United States

Personal life

Hawking has stated that, having been diagnosed with ALS during an early stage of his graduate work, he did not see much point in obtaining a doctorate if he were to die soon after. Hawking later said that the real turning point was his 1965 marriage to Jane Wilde, a language student. Jane cared for him until 1990 when the couple separated. They had three children: Robert, Lucy, and Timothy. Hawking married his personal care assistant, Elaine Mason, in 1995; the couple divorced In October 2006 amid claims by former nurses that she had abused him. In 1999, Jane Hawking published a memoir, ''Music to Move the Stars'', detailing the marriage and its breakdown; in 2010 she published a revised version, ''Travelling to Infinity, My Life with Stephen''.

Hawking supports the children's charity SOS Children's Villages UK and has stated that his view on how to live life is to "seek the greatest value of our action". He strongly opposed the Iraq War, calling it "a war crime" and "based on two lies" at a demonstration in Trafalgar Square, where he participated in a public reading of the names of Iraqi war victims.

Hawking has named his secondary school mathematics teacher Dikran Tahta as an inspiration. He maintains his connection with St Albans School, giving his name to one of the four houses and to an extracurricular science lecture series.

Illness

Hawking has a motor neurone disease that is related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a condition that has progressed over the years. He is now almost completely paralysed and communicates through a speech generating device. Hawking's illness has progressed more slowly than typical cases of ALS: survival for more than 10 years after diagnosis is uncommon.

Symptoms of the disorder first appeared while he was enrolled at University of Cambridge; he lost his balance and fell down a flight of stairs, hitting his head. The diagnosis of motor neurone disease came when Hawking was 21, shortly before his first marriage, and doctors said he would not survive more than two or three years. By 1974, he was unable to feed himself or get out of bed. His speech became slurred so that he could be understood only by people who knew him well. During a visit to CERN in Geneva in 1985, Hawking contracted pneumonia, which in his condition was life-threatening as it further restricted his already limited respiratory capacity. He had an emergency tracheotomy, and as a result lost what remained of his ability to speak. A speech generating device was built in Cambridge, using software from an American company, that enabled Hawking to write onto a computer with small movements of his body, and then have a voice synthesiser speak what he typed.

The particular voice synthesiser hardware he uses, which has an American English accent, is no longer being produced. Asked why he has still kept the same voice after so many years, Hawking stated that he has not heard a voice he likes better and that he identifies with it even though the synthesiser is both large and fragile by current standards. Although a mid-2009 corporate press release said that he had chosen NeoSpeech's VoiceText speech synthesiser as his new voice, a 30 December 2011 interview with Hawking's technician indicates that Hawking is still using an older synthesiser containing a card "which dates back to the 1980s" and that any upgrade would have to be the same voice, otherwise "it wouldn't be Stephen's voice any more".

For lectures and media appearances, Hawking appears to speak fluently through his synthesiser; however when preparing answers his system produces words at a rate of about one per minute. Hawking's setup uses a predictive text entry system, which requires only the first few characters in order to auto-complete the word, but as he is only able to use his cheek for data entry, constructing complete sentences takes time. During a TED Conference talk, it took him seven minutes to provide a brief answer to a question.

He describes himself as lucky, despite his disease. Its slow progression has allowed him time to make influential discoveries and has not hindered him from having, in his own words, "a very attractive family".

In popular culture

Hawking has played himself on numerous television shows and has been portrayed in many more. He has played himself on a ''Red Dwarf'' anniversary special, played a hologram of himself on the episode "Descent" of ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'', and appeared on the Discovery Channel special ''Alien Planet''. He has also played himself in several episodes of ''The Simpsons'' and ''Futurama'', and has had an action figure made of his ''Simpsons'' likeness. The 2004 BBC4 TV film Hawking dealt with his early life and the onset of his illness. He was portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch. In 2008, Hawking was the subject of and featured in the documentary series ''Stephen Hawking, Master of the Universe'' for Channel 4. In September 2008, Hawking presided over the unveiling of the 'Chronophage' (time-eating) Corpus Clock at Corpus Christi College Cambridge. His actual synthesiser voice was used on parts of the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking" from the 1994 album ''The Division Bell'', as well as on Turbonegro's "Intro: The Party Zone" on their 2005 album ''Party Animals'', Wolfsheim's "Kein Zurück (Oliver Pinelli Mix)". On 5 April 2012 he appeared as a guest star in an episode of ''The Big Bang Theory''.

Space and spaceflight

At the celebration of his 65th birthday on 8 January 2007, Hawking announced his plan to take a zero-gravity flight that year, with an intention to later take a sub-orbital spaceflight. Billionaire Richard Branson pledged to pay all expenses for a future flight on Virgin Galactic's space service, costing an estimated £100,000. Stephen Hawking's zero-gravity flight in a "''Vomit Comet''" of Zero Gravity Corporation, during which he experienced weightlessness eight times, took place on 26 April 2007. He became the first quadriplegic to float in zero gravity. The fee is normally US$3,750 for 10 to 15 plunges, but Hawking was not required to pay. Hawking was quoted before the flight saying: }} In an interview with ''The Daily Telegraph'', he suggested that space was the Earth's long term hope. He continued this theme at a 2008 Charlie Rose interview.

Hawking has indicated that he is almost certain that alien life exists in other parts of the universe, "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like". He believes alien life not only certainly exists on planets but perhaps even in other places, like within stars or even floating in outer space. He has also warned that a few of these species might be intelligent and threaten Earth. "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. He has advocated that, rather than try to establish contact, humans should try to avoid contact with alien life forms. At a George Washington University lecture in honour of NASA's fiftieth anniversary, Hawking discussed the existence of extraterrestrial life, believing that "primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare".

Religious views

In his early work, Hawking spoke of God in a metaphorical sense, such as in ''A Brief History of Time'': "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we should know the mind of God." In the same book he suggested the existence of God was unnecessary to explain the origin of the universe. In the Channel 4 documentary ''Genius of Britain'', in his 2010 book ''The Grand Design'', and in interviews with the ''Telegraph'', Hawking has clarified that he does not believe in a "personal" God. Hawking writes, "The question is: is the way the universe began chosen by God for reasons we can't understand, or was it determined by a law of science? I believe the second." He adds, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing."

His ex-wife, Jane, has described him as an atheist. Hawking has stated that he is "not religious in the normal sense" and he believes that "the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws." In an interview published in ''The Guardian'' newspaper, Hawking regarded the concept of Heaven as a myth, believing that there is "no heaven or afterlife" and that such a notion was a "fairy story for people afraid of the dark." Hawking contrasted religion and science in 2010, saying: "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."

Philosophical views

At Google’s Zeitgeist Conference in 2011, Hawking said that "philosophy is dead." He believes philosophers "have not kept up with modern developments in science" and that scientists "have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.” He said that philosophical problems can be answered by science, particularly new scientific theories which "lead us to a new and very different picture of the universe and our place in it”.

Publications

Hawking's first popular science book, ''A Brief History of Time'', was published on 1 April 1988. It stayed on the British ''Sunday Times'' best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. ''A Brief History of Time'' was followed by ''The Universe in a Nutshell'' (2001). A collection of essays titled ''Black Holes and Baby Universes'' (1993) was also popular. His book, ''A Briefer History of Time'' (2005), co-written by Leonard Mlodinow, updated his earlier works to make them accessible to a wider audience. In 2007 Hawking and his daughter, Lucy Hawking, published ''George's Secret Key to the Universe'', a children's book focusing on science that Lucy Hawking described as "a bit like Harry Potter but without the magic."

Popular

''A Brief History of Time'', (1988)

''Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays'', (1994)

''The Universe in a Nutshell'', (2001)

''On The Shoulders of Giants. The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy'', (2002)

''A Briefer History of Time'', (2005)

''God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History'', (2005) ''The Grand Design'', (2010)

Children's fiction

These are co-written with his daughter Lucy.

''George's Secret Key to the Universe'', (2007)

''George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt'', (2009)

''George and the Big Bang'', (2011)

Films and series

''A Brief History of Time'' (1991)

''Stephen Hawking's Universe'' (1997)

''Horizon: The Hawking Paradox'' (2005)

''Masters of Science Fiction'' (2007)

''Stephen Hawking: Master of the Universe'' (2008) ''Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking'' (2010)

See also

Many-worlds interpretation, or flexiverse

Gibbons–Hawking ansatz

Gibbons–Hawking space

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

Stephen Hawking's web site

Category:1942 births Category:Academics of the University of Cambridge Category:Adams Prize recipients Category:Albert Einstein Medal recipients Category:Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge Category:Alumni of University College, Oxford Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Cosmologists Category:English astronomers Category:English atheists Category: English people with disabilities Category:English physicists Category:English science writers Category:Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:People educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire Category:Honorary Fellows of University College, Oxford Category:Living people Category:Lucasian Professors of Mathematics Category:Members of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics Category:Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour Category:Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Category:Mental calculators Category:People educated at St Albans High School for Girls Category:People from Oxford Category:People from St Albans Category:People with motor neurone disease Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:Recipients of the Copley Medal Category:Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Category:Religious skeptics Category:Theoretical physicists Category:Wolf Prize in Physics laureates Category:20th-century philosophers Category:21st-century philosophers

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