Rob Schneider

Robert Michael "Rob" Schneider (born October 31, 1963) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, and director. A stand-up comic and veteran of the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, Schneider has gone on to a successful career in feature films, including starring roles in the comedy films Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, The Hot Chick, and Grown Ups.

Early life

Schneider was born in San Francisco, California, and grew up in the nearby suburb of Pacifica. He is the son of Pilar (née Monroe), a former kindergarten teacher and ex-school board president, and Marvin Schneider, a real estate broker.^[2] Schneider's father was Jewish and Schneider's mother was Catholic.^[3] His grandmother was a Filipina who met and married his maternal grandfather, a Caucasian American army private, while he was stationed in the Philippines.^[4][5] Schneider graduated from Terra Nova High School in 1982.

Early career

Schneider started his stand-up comedy career while still in high school, opening for San Francisco favorites Head On, a band managed by Rob's older brother John. After high school, he played Bay Area nightclubs such as the Holy City Zoo and The Other Cafe, and was a regular guest on local radio programs. After opening a show by comedian Dennis Miller in 1987, Schneider won a slot on HBO's 13th Annual Young Comedians special, which was hosted by Miller. Schneider's appearance on the HBO special led to a position as a writer for the late night NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live.

Saturday Night Live

Schneider was hired at Saturday Night Live in 1988. Schneider swiftly graduated from writer and featured player to full cast member. From 1990 to 1994 at SNL, he played such roles as "Tiny Elvis" and "Orgasm Guy". His best known recurring character was "Richard Laymer", an office worker whose desk was stuck beside the photocopier, and who addressed each of his fellow employees with an endless stream of annoying nicknames. Schneider is featured in the video release The Bad Boys of Saturday Night Live, along with colleagues Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade and Chris Farley.

Recurring SNL characters

• Richard Laymer ("The Richmeister"), an office worker who annoys people by giving them nicknames
• Carlo, from the Il Cantore Restaurant sketches
• The Sensitive Naked Man, a nude man who gives advice to other characters

Celebrity impersonations

• Fred Schneider from the B-52s
• Former SNL cast member Billy Crystal
• Adolf Hitler
• k.d. lang
• Jeff Gillooly
• Erik Menendez
• Soon-Yi Previn
• Rick Dees
• Elvis Presley

Feature films, sitcoms and endorsements

After leaving SNL, Schneider played supporting roles in a series of movies including Surf Ninjas, Judge Dredd, The Beverly Hillbillies, Demolition Man and Down Periscope. He also appeared in a recurring part on the TV series Coach. In 1996, he co-starred in the NBC sit-com Men Behaving Badly, an American take on the hit British series of the same name. The U.S. version ran for two seasons.

Schneider starred in the 1999 feature film Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, a tale of a fish-tank cleaner who incurs a massive debt and is forced to become a "man-whore." This was followed by The Animal, about a man given animal powers by a mad scientist; The Hot Chick, wherein the mind of a petty thief played by Schneider is mystically switched into the body of a pretty, but mean-spirited high school cheerleader (Rachel McAdams); and the sequel Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. The latter movie was not well received by critics or moviegoers, and as a result, Schneider won a 2005 Worst Actor Razzie Award for his role in the film.^[6]

In 2006, Schneider co-starred in the baseball-themed family comedy The Benchwarmers, along with his fellow SNL alumnus David Spade as well as Jon Heder. Other film roles include Schneider's appearance with Jim Henson's Muppets in the 1999 film Muppets from Space, and his role as a San Francisco hobo in the 2004 remake of Around the World in 80 Days.

Schneider's directorial debut, the comedy Big Stan, was released in some overseas markets during the fall of 2008, with a U.S. release in early 2009. In the film, he starred as a con artist who is arrested for perpetrating real-estate scams. He is sentenced to prison, so he takes a crash-course in martial arts to survive incarceration.

Schneider has also appeared in numerous comedies starring his SNL comrade Adam Sandler, most recently on 2010's Grown Ups. The comedic characters Schneider plays in these films include an overly enthusiastic Cajun man who proclaims the catch-phrase, "You can do it!"; an amiable Middle Eastern delivery boy; a prison inmate; and Sandler's one-eyed Hawaiian sidekick, Ula. Schneider has uttered the line "You can do it!" as a running gag in Sandler's films The Waterboy, Little Nicky, 50 First Dates, The Longest Yard, and Bedtime Stories, as well as in a deleted scene from Click. (A sample of Schneider saying the phrase also turns up in the song "Original Prankster" by The Offspring.) Returning the favor, Sandler appeared in a cameo to spout the same line in Schneider's The Animal, wherein, as a reference, Adam Sandler utters: "Yeah! You can do it!" Sandler also showed up briefly in Schneider's The Hot Chick. Schneider narrated Sandler's 2002 animated movie Eight Crazy Nights, and voiced the part of a Chinese waiter. Schneider also had an uncredited cameo as a Canadian-Japanese wedding-chapel minister in the 2007 Sandler-Kevin James comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, and played a Palestinian cab driver who serves as the title character's nemesis in the 2008 Sandler film You Don't Mess with the Zohan.

Schneider played a variety of roles in the 2005 TV special Back to Norm, starring another former SNL player Norm Macdonald, and appeared on episodes of the popular TV shows Seinfeld and Ally McBeal. Schneider hosted the Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit '97 TV special, and the 2005 Teen Choice Awards, and is a frequent guest on NBC's late-night variety program The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. (In Schneider's appearance with Leno on the July 24, 2007 episode of The Tonight Show, he showed up in drag as actress Lindsay Lohan after Lohan cancelled following a controversial arrest for driving under the influence.^[7]

Besides his efforts in movies and television, Schneider released his first comedy album Registered Offender in July 2010. Registered Offender is composed of audio sketches and songs, with Schneider himself doing all of the character voices on the recording. He also revived his stand-up comedy career in 2010 with an international tour of theaters, clubs and casinos.

Schneider appeared in the music video for country singer Neal McCoy's "Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On", as the song's title character. McCoy and Schneider met while the two went on a USO tour in support of U.S. troops two months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Schneider starred as the title character in the CBS-TV situation comedy Rob, which was loosely based on his real life. The series was canceled by CBS in May 2012.

Schneider is the official celebrity spokesperson for the Taiwan Tourism Bureau and the Ten Ren Tea company in Taipei.^[8]

Criticism and controversies

Disputes

Schneider has engaged in a number of high-profile disputes with public figures:

In January 2005, film critic Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times said in an article that Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo was overlooked for an Academy Award because "nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic." Schneider responded two weeks later with full-page ads in Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, saying he had done research and found that Mr. Goldstein had never won any journalistic awards, commenting, "Maybe you didn't win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven't invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who's Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers." Schneider also wrote, "Patrick, I can honestly say that if I sat with you and your colleagues at a luncheon, afterward, they'd say 'You know, that Rob Schneider is a pretty intelligent guy, I hope we can do that again.' Whereas, if you sat with my colleagues, after lunch, you would just be beaten beyond recognition."^[9] He also called Goldstein a "real scumbag" in an appearance on Tom Green's House Tonight when referring to Goldstein's criticisms, and opined that Goldstein's criticism was unimaginative.^[10] Patrick publicly asked, "Who are Schneider's colleagues and why would I want to have lunch with them?"^[11]

In August 2005, film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times responded to the Schneider–Goldstein conflict in his review for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. While noting that an online search showed that Goldstein had won a National Headliner Award, a Los Angeles Press Club Award, a RockCritics.com award, and the Publicists' Guild award for lifetime achievement, Ebert said, "As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."^[12] (Ebert's 2007 collection of reviews of movies for which he gave negative reviews was titled Your Movie Sucks, a reference to his review of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.) In a later interview with Stuff magazine, Schneider called Ebert an "ass", saying that Ebert "irks" him and that he had been told that Ebert is "not nice to the people he works with". Ebert rejected the accusation, and reaffirmed his opinion of the film, stating, "If he's going to persist in making bad movies, he's going to have to grow accustomed to reading bad reviews."^[13] On May 7, 2007, Roger Ebert reported via his website that he had received a beautiful bouquet of flowers with a note stating it was from "Your least favorite actor, Rob Schneider." Ebert had recently undergone a very serious surgery to remove a cancerous salivary gland, and spent months recovering. Ebert saw the flowers as a kind gesture and publicly thanked Schneider, and said that Schneider may have made a bad film, but he was not a bad man. Ebert also expressed hope that Schneider would make a film that Ebert finds wonderful.^[14][15] After Roger Ebert's passing, in an interview with Chaz Ebert, Schneider admitted that the incident "made [him] reassess what pictures [he] really wanted to make and how [he] got to make a movie in the first place that even [he] wasn't happy with".^[16]

Following anti-Semitic remarks made by Mel Gibson during his arrest for a DUI in late July 2006, Schneider took out a full-page ad in Variety to send an open letter to the Hollywood community, pledging as "a 1/2 Jew" to "never work with Mel Gibson-actor-director-producer-and anti-Semite." He further wrote that "even if Mr. Gibson offered me a lead role in 'Passion of the Christ 2,' I, like Bernie Brillstein, would have to say 'No!'" Schneider also used the ad to make reference to his upcoming directorial debut, Big Stan.^[17] In 2008, Schneider described this ad as "a comedic, satirical view of how I saw the situation with Mel Gibson, and also the hypocrisy of show business when they're all standing in line to say what a bad person he is when they're all a bunch of hypocritical assholes."^[18]

In early July 2007, film reviewers in Australia noted the similarities between the 2007 American movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and the 2004 Australian feature Strange Bedfellows.^[19] On July 18, 2007, The Sydney Morning Herald published an online article in which Strange Bedfellows director and co-writer Dean Murphy aired his concerns that Chuck and Larry may infringe on his copyright.^[20] The article reported that Michael Caton had stated he had passed a DVD of Strange Bedfellows to Rob Schneider, as the two actors had earlier worked together on The Animal. Caton was then quoted as saying, "I'm going to have to get onto Rob Schneider and say you owe me one pal ... or Adam Sandler owes me one. They're really good mates and it's obvious [Schneider] said 'Hey, have a look at this'." In August 2007, Schneider took out a full-page ad on page 10 of The Sydney Morning Herald in the form of an open letter, in which he repudiated the charges. Caton replied through the Herald that he was disappointed with Schneider for not understanding his earlier criticisms were "obviously tongue in cheek".^[21]

Accusations of ethnic stereotyping

A 2005 New York Times editorial admonished, "Watch Rob Schneider play Ula, a leering Hawaiian in the Adam Sandler movie 50 First Dates, with a pidgin accent by way of Cheech and Chong, and you get the sense that Hollywood still believes that there is no ethnic caricature a white actor can't improve upon." In a letter to the editor, Schneider defended himself by asserting his Filipino heritage, adding that he believes that "Hollywood should give roles to the most talented person irrespective of ethnicity, race or in my case 'looks'."^[22][23]

In 2007, the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) criticized Schneider for donning prosthetic make up to play a Japanese minister in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry by likening it to "yellow face". Richard Roeper said in his review that "Rob Schneider's Filipino background hardly excuses his portrayal of an Asian minister in perhaps the most egregious stereotype of its kind since Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's."

MANAA also criticized Schneider for an Asian character's dialogue in 2005's Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, which he co-wrote. The organization stated that the portrayal of the character "perpetuated the tired stereotype that Asian men have small penises".^[24]

Personal life

In 1996, Schneider established the "Rob Schneider Music Foundation". The foundation returned music education to Pacifica's elementary schools by paying the teachers' salaries and providing funds for instruments and other equipment. Prior to Schneider's efforts, the school system did not have music education programs for many years.^[25]

Schneider once co-owned the DNA Lounge, a San Francisco nightclub.^[26] He supports Mexican soccer team Tigres UANL.^[27]

Schneider's mother has made cameo appearances in her son's films, playing a cheerleading contest judge in The Hot Chick, a restaurant patron in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, and a nosy neighbor in The Animal.

On April 23, 2011, Schneider married television producer Patricia Azarcoya Arce, in Beverly Hills, California.^[28] Their first child, Miranda Scarlett Schneider, was born in 2012.^[29]

In 2013, Schneider announced that he would no longer support the Democratic Party, citing California's heavy regulations and calling the state's economy a disaster. He became a member of the Republican Party and endorsed assemblyman Tim Donnelly for governor.^[30]

Schneider is also an outspoken critic of vaccination practices, even going so far as to liken California Bill AB 2109, which would require the informed consent of parents before opting for a philosophical exemption to vaccinations, to the Nuremberg Laws of Nazi Germany.^[31] In September, 2014, State Farm pulled a television commercial featuring Schneider after a social media campaign urged the insurance company to end its affiliation with the anti-vaccine actor.^[32]

Filmography

See also

• Category:Rob Schneider albums
• Category:Films directed by Rob Schneider

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Rob Schneider

• Official website
• Rob Schneider at the Internet Movie Database
• Environmental Media Awards
• 2009 interview with Bullz-Eye.com