Jon Lovitz

Jonathan Michael Lovitz (born July 21, 1957) is an American comedian, actor, and singer perhaps best known as a cast member of Saturday Night Live and the voice of Jay Sherman in The Critic. He is also a frequent guest star on The Simpsons. His first character, Artie Ziff (Marge's prom date from season two's "The Way We Was") was originally supposed to be a one-off character. But the staff loved Lovitz so they kept bringing him back.
== Early life ==
Lovitz was born in Tarzana California, to a Jewish couple.http://www.filmreference.com/film/59/Jon-Lovitz.html He attended and studied theater at the University of California at Irvine and graduated in 1979. He studied acting with Tony Barr at the Film Actors Workshop. He became a member of The Groundlings comedy troupe where he befriended Phil Hartman (who, coincidentally, was also an SNL cast member and Simpsons voice actor) and Paul Reubens (who auditioned to be on Saturday Night Live during its infamously awful sixth season [1980-1981], but lost to Gilbert Gottfried. The loss led Reubens to create the comedy special, The Pee Wee Herman Show, which would later be the CBS Saturday morning kids' show Pee Wee's Playhouse). His father was an immigrant from Albania who lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and later moved to California.
== Career ==
=== Saturday Night Live ===
Lovitz was a cast member of Saturday Night Live from 1985 (during the show's failed attempt at bringing semi-established celebrities, like Joan Cusack, Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid, and Robert Downey, Jr., to the cast. Lovitz, along with Nora Dunn, then-Weekend Update anchor, Dennis Miller, and feature players Al Franken and A. Whitney Brown, were the only cast members from season 11 to move on to season 12, which is considered by critics and fans to be SNL's return to form after years of shaky quality) to 1990. Lovitz later said in an interview for the book Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live that his time on SNL was the most memorable in his career. He went from having no money to being offered a $500,000 movie contract. He was nominated for an Emmy his first two years on Saturday Night Live. One of his most notable SNL characters was "Tommy Flanagan, The Pathological Liar" that generated the catchphrase, "Yeah! That's the ticket!" Some of his other recurring characters included Master Thespian, Tonto, Mephistopheles, and Hanukkah Harry. His most notable celebrity impressions include Michael Dukakis, Harvey Fierstein, Andrew "Dice" Clay, Don Adams, Gene Shalit, and Sylvester Stallone.
=== Voice over work ===
Lovitz has lent his voice to several cartoons and films. In the series The Critic he played the title character of Jay Sherman. On The Simpsons he played Marge's ex-prom date Artie Ziff, theater director Llewellyn Sinclair (and his sister, who runs a daycare center) on the season four episode "A Streetcar Named Marge", Jay Sherman from The Critic in the Season 6 crossover episode "A Star is Burns" (and a brief appearance on season eight's "Hurricane Neddy" where Jay Sherman is one of the patients at the Calmwood Mental Hospital), and paparazzo Enrico Irritazio in the season eighteen episode "Homerazzi". He also played Professor Lombardo (the community college art teacher who praised Marge's Ringo Starr artwork on "Brush with Greatness") and Aristotle Amadopolis (the nuclear plant boss who was a rival to Mr. Burns on "Homer Defined" and "Homer at the Bat") In "The Ziff Who Came To Dinner", he not only voices Ziff, but has a brief bit as Sinclair, Amadopolis, Lombardo, and Sherman at the same time.
=== Movie cameos and television guest appearances ===
In the late 1990s, Lovitz was "the man who wrote the Yellow Pages", in a series of commercials and print ads for the American Yellow Pages industry.
He also had an unaccredited cameo as a rival crooner to Adam Sandler in the movie The Wedding Singer.
Lovitz has also appeared on Friends twice. He first appeared in the Season 1 episode "The One With The Stoned Guy" as a restaurateur who gets stoned on marijuana trip just prior to interviewing Monica Geller for a job. He reappeared years later in the Season 9 episode "The One with the Blind Dates", where it is revealed that he lost his restaurant due to his drug problem.
He also appeared on Seinfeld as Gary Fogel, a man who lies about having cancer ("The Scofflaw") and later dies in a car accident.
Lovitz guest-starred twice on Newsradio as two separate characters before becoming a cast member in the show's final season (playing a third character).
=== Broadway theater ===
He has appeared on Broadway at the Music Box Theater in Neil Simon's play The Dinner Party, taking over the lead role from Henry Winkler. He sang at Carnegie Hall three times (including Great Performances' Ira Gershwin at 100: A Celebration at Carnegie Hall) and sang the national anthem at Dodger Stadium and the U.S. Open.
On October 10, 2001, Lovitz sang a duet (with Robbie Williams) of the song "Well, Did You Evah" at the Royal Albert Hall in the UK. The recording can be found on the Swing When You're Winning album.
=== Stand-up comedy ===
In 2005, Lovitz entered stand-up comedy for the first time in his career. He also appeared in the film The Producers as the strict accounting firm chairman, Mr. Marx. In 2006, he became the spokesperson in an advertising campaign for the Subway restaurant chain. He was dropped from the campaign later that year by Fred De Luca after test audiences and a number of phone calls and letters deemed him not funny enough to cause people to eat.
On May 31, 2007 the Laugh Factory on Sunset Strip announced that Lovitz had signed a deal to appear there every Wednesday night for the rest of his life. Or, Lovitz could appear in New York if he is there on a project such as a movie. In addition, Lovitz will write a Laugh Factory blog giving advice to up-and-coming comedians. Lovitz commented "Who knows? I could become the Don Ho of Los Angeles," he said. "God knows I've got enough Hawaiian shirts".http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=cdc5216b-4a43-48d0-89cd-65bbf8c763af
== Confrontation with Andy Dick ==
On July 11, 2007, Lovitz got into a violent confrontation with fellow comedian Andy Dick at the Laugh Factory. Lovitz had long blamed Dick for reintroducing Phil Hartman's wife Brynn to cocaine (after 10 years of sobriety) just five months before she would murder her husband and commit suicide. Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada said, "Jon picked Andy up by the head and smashed him into the bar four or five times, and blood started gushing out of his nose." Dick had previously said to Lovitz he would "put the 'Phil Hartman hex' on you - you’re the next one to die."https://archive.is/20120908070252/www.nypost.com/seven/07172007/gossip/pagesix/pagesix.htm Lovitz told Page Six, "All the comedians are glad I did it because this guy is an asshole." He has not commented further. Lovitz succeeded Hartman on the comedy series NewsRadio following Hartman's murder; Dick was a co-star.
Recently, Lovitz was on the 97.1 Morning Show. When he was asked about the Andy Dick incident, he replied, "Oh, I just call him A. Dick."http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=85cde3f0-f86d-41d2-bbd2-deee6b84c48f&f=00&fg=copy
== Filmography ==
=== Films ===
Film 	Year	Role
Hamburger The Motion Picture 	1986	Security Guard
Last Resort 	1986	Bartender
Jumpin' Jack Flash 	1986	Doug
Ratboy 	1986	Party Guest
¡Three Amigos! 	1986	Morty
The Brave Little Toaster 	1987	The Radio (voice)
Big 	1988	Scotty Brennen
My Stepmother is an Alien 	1988	Ron Mills
Cranium Command (short subject) 	1989	Right Cranium
Mr. Destiny 	1990	Clip Metzler
Tales from the Crypt 	1991	Barry Blye
An American Tail: Fievel Goes West 	1991	T.R. Chula
A League of Their Own 	1992	Ernie Capadino
Mom and Dad Save The World 	1992	Emperor Todd Spengo
Loaded Weapon 1 	1993	Becker
Coneheads 	1993	Dr. Rudolph, Dentist (credited)
City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold	1994	Glen Robbins
North 	1994	Arthur Belt
Trapped in Paradise 	1994	Dave Firpo
The Great White Hype 	1996	Sol
Matilda 	1996	Million $ Sticky Host
High School High 	1996	Richard Clark
The Wedding Singer 	1998	Jimmie Moore (credited)
Banjo-Kazooie (commercial) 	1998	Narrator (Voice)
Happiness 	1998	Andy Kornbluth
Spyro the Dragon (video game) 	1998	Tomas, Oswin, Cosmos, Zane, additional voices (voice)
Lost and Found 	1999	Uncle Harry
Small Time Crooks 	2000	Benny
Little Nicky 	2000	Pepper
Sand 	2000	Kirby
3000 Miles to Graceland 	2001	Jay Peterson
Cats & Dogs 	2001	Calico (voice)
Rat Race 	2001	Randall 'Randy' Pear
Good Advice 	2001	Barry Sherman
Eight Crazy Nights 	2002	Tom Baltezor (voice)
Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star 	2003	Sidney Wernick
The Stepford Wives 	2004	Dave Markowitz
Pancho's Pizza (short film) 	2005	
Bailey's Billion$ 	2005	Bailey (voice)
The Producers 	2005	Mr. Marks
The Benchwarmers 	2006	Mel
Southland Tales 	2007	Bart Bookman
Farce of the Penguins 	2007	My eyes are up here Penguin (voice)
I Could Never Be Your Woman 	2007	
=== Television ===
Show 	Years 	Role
Saturday Night Live	1985–1990 	various
Seinfeld 	1989–1998 	'Gary Fogel' in The Scofflaw
The Simpsons 	1991-Present	Llewellyn Sinclair, Ms. Sinclair, Professor Lombardo, Enrico Irritazio, Artie Ziff, Aristotle Amadopolis, and Jay Sherman
Friends 	1995 & 2003 	Restaurant owner who interviews Monica Geller and later goes out on a date with Rachel Green
The Critic 	1994–1995 	Jay Sherman
NewsRadio 	1998–1999 	Max Louis, Fred,http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001484/filmoseries#tt0112095 and Mike Johnsonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsradio#Cast
He is currently in the cast of Mr. Box Office as Bobby Gold.
== Characters ==
*Llewellyn Sinclair
*Ms. Sinclair
*Professor Lombardo
*Enrico Irritazio
*Artie Ziff
*Aristotle Amadopolis
*Jay Sherman
*Avery Devereaux
*himself
== Appearances ==
== Citations ==
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Category:Guest stars
Category:Recurring guest stars
Category:Male guest stars
Category:Cast and Crew
Category:Male Cast and Crew
Category:1957 births
Category:Season 2 first appearances