JUDD APATOW
Date of Birth: December 6, 1967
Born in Syosset, New York, Apatow knew at an early age that he wanted to be a professional comedian one day. In high school, he launched a radio show and began interviewing his favorite comedy personalities, including Steve Allen, Howard Stern and John Candy. By the end of his senior year, he'd begun to perform stand-up comedy himself.
After appearing on HBO's Young Comedians special, Apatow found his writing career taking off and eventually gave up performing. He went on to co-create The Ben Stiller Show. The show won an Emmy Award for writing, which Apatow shared with the rest of the show’s writers. Unfortunately, despite rave reviews from TV critics, it was cancelled after only 12 episodes. Apatow went directly to work for The Larry Sanders Show as a writer and producer. He received two CableAce awards in 1994 and 1995 and launched his directing career with the show.
He served as an executive producer of the award-winning series Freaks and Geeks and also wrote and directed several episodes, then created, executive-produced and directed several episodes of the series Undeclared, which was named one of Time magazine's Ten Best Shows of 2001.
Having moved into feature territory as the writer and executive producer of movies such as Heavy Weights (1995) and Celtic Pride (1996), Apatow made his film directing debut with The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005), starring Steve Carell, who co-wrote the script with Apatow. The film was a success, grossing over $109 million at the domestic box office and winning a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Comedy movie.
His second film, Knocked Up (2007), stars Katherine Heigl as a woman who gets pregnant after a one night stand with an unattractive man.
Apatow is married to actress Leslie Mann. They have two children.
Filmography:
Funny People (2009)
Knocked Up (2007)
The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)