Charles Grodin

Charles Grodin is a unique figure in the American culture. He is a movie star, a screenwriter, a movie producer, a Broadway star, a Broadway producer and director, a playwright with three plays produced in New York, a television star, a television director, a writer of television specials, and a talk show host on CNBC and MSNBC for five years. Talkers Magazine called The Charles Grodin Show one of the 10 most talked about television shows in America. He was a writer and director for Candid Camera. He is a member of the actor's studio, a best-selling author and a monologist with his show An Evening of Humor with Charles Grodin. He is also a human rights activist whose two-year effort to gain clemency for three women sentenced under New York's harsh Rockefeller drug laws ended successfully during Christmas 1999. Grodin attained movie stardom with The Heartbreak Kid in 1972 and then went on to star in a number of outstanding films, including Heaven Can Wait, Seems Like Old Times, Midnight Run and the Beethoven movies. At the peak of his stardom, he chose to stop doing movies and for the next five years hosted his own television show on CNBC and MSNBC. This was the one place in television where the unprotected people in our country could regularly count on being heard. Charles Grodin hosted shows on the homeless, the hungry, domestic violence and prison reform. Charles Grodin is the author of three critically acclaimed books: It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here, which is considered by many to be the show business bible for actors, How I Get Through Life and We're Ready For You Mr. Grodin. He also authored a children's book, Freddy the Fly. He has contributed pieces to The New York Times, Esquire Magazine and the Village Voice among many other publications.