Brad Garrett

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Date of Birth : Apr 14th 1960

Three-time Emmy Award-winning American actor and comedian known for his roles on the television sitcoms Everybody Loves Raymond and ‘Til Death.

Garrett was born in Woodland Hills, California to Barbara Colton, a housewife, and Al Gerstenfeld, a hearing aid specialist working in geriatrics. He has two older brothers, Jeff and Paul. He attended Hale Junior High School in Woodland Hills, California and graduated from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, where he was the head yell leader, in 1978. He attended UCLA for less than two months before dropping out to pursue his comedy career.

Garrett started out at various improv clubs in Los Angeles, including The Improv in Hollywood and The Ice House in Pasadena. In 1984, he became the first $100,000 grand champion winner in the comedy category of the TV show Star Search. This led to his first appearance, at age 23, on “The Tonight Show” starring Johnny Carson, making him one of the youngest comedians ever to perform on the show. His appearance with Carson brought Garrett a lot of national attention, and soon he was appearing as an opening act for such headliners as Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli. He also opened in Las Vegas for Frank Sinatra, David Copperfield, Smokey Robinson, Sammy Davis, Jr., the Beach Boys, and Julio Iglesias.

After achieving a strong measure of success with stand-up comedy, Garrett decided to change gears and try his luck with performing on TV. He was the voice of wrestling legend Hulk Hogan for the short-lived cartoon series Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n Wrestling, He was featured on Family Feud during Ray Combs’s tenure during a Funny Men vs. Funny Women week during November sweeps. He also appeared for a week on the game show Super Password in 1987. He then appeared in the short-lived summer comedy “First Impressions” (CBS, 1988), in which he was a divorced father who makes a living doing impressions, in a one-time spot as a bank loan officer on Roseanne (NBC), and “The Pursuit of Happiness” (NBC, 1995-96), in which he was the hero’s gay best friend. Though prior to these roles, Garrett had also had a minor part on Transformers, voicing the Decepticon base Trypticon in season three and as an ill-fated thug in Suicide Kings. He soon won the role of Ray Romano’s brother Robert Barone on the long-running sophisticated but family-oriented comedy hit Everybody Loves Raymond. Garrett has also made an appearance on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and played a hitman who tried to kill Will Smith.