Tim Allen

**Timothy Alan Dick** (born June 13, 1953), known professionally as **Tim Allen**, is an American actor and comedian. He is known for playing Tim "The Toolman" Taylor on the ABC sitcom *Home Improvement* (1991–1999) and Mike Baxter on the ABC/Fox sitcom *Last Man Standing* (2011–2021). He voices Buzz Lightyear for the *Toy Story* franchise and played Scott Calvin and Santa Claus in the *Santa Clause* film trilogy (1994–2006). Allen's other films include *Tropical Snow* (1988), *Galaxy Quest* (1999), *Joe Somebody* (2001), *Zoom* (2006), *Wild Hogs* (2007), *The Six Wives of Henry Lefay* (2009), *Crazy on the Outside* (2010), *3 Geezers!* (2013), and *El Camino Christmas* (2017). He voices Finn from *The Legends of Poster*.

## Early Life

Allen was born in Denver, Colorado, to Martha Katherine (née Fox), a community-service worker, and Gerald M. Dick, a real estate agent. He is the third oldest of six children. Allen has two older brothers as well as two younger brothers and a younger sister. His father died in a car accident in November 1964, colliding with a drunk driver when Allen was 11. Two years later, his mother married her high school sweetheart, a business executive, and moved with her six children to Birmingham, Michigan, to be with her new husband and his three children. Allen has said the move meant going from "being in a cool group at one school to being at the bottom [of the social hierarchy at another]."

Allen attended Seaholm High School in Birmingham, where he was in theater and music classes (resulting in his love of classical piano). He then attended Central Michigan University before transferring to Western Michigan University in 1974. At Western Michigan, Allen worked at the student radio station WIDR and received a Bachelor of Science degree in communications specializing in radio and television production in 1976 with a split minor in philosophy and design. In 1998, Western Michigan awarded Allen an honorary fine arts degree and the Distinguished Alumni Award.

## Career

Allen started his career as a comedian in 1975. On a dare from one of his friends, he participated in a comedy night at Mark Ridley's Comedy Castle in Royal Oak, a suburb of Detroit. While in Detroit he began to get recognition appearing in local television commercials and appearing on cable comedy shows such as Gary Thison's *Some Semblance of Sanity*.

Allen was arrested in 1978 and imprisoned for drug trafficking. Following his release from prison in 1981, he returned to comedy. He moved to Los Angeles and became a regular performer at The Comedy Store. He began to do stand-up appearances on late-night talk shows and specials on record and film.

Despite his admitted limited acting range (he once told a magazine his range as an actor is "... strictly limited. I can only play a part if I can draw on personal experience, and that well can go dry pretty quickly"), Allen rose to fame in acting with the ABC sitcom *Home Improvement* (1991–1999) produced for ABC by Wind Dancer Productions, a company he co-founded with producer Carmen Finestra. Allen played the main character Tim "The Tool-Man" Taylor. In November 1994, he simultaneously starred in the highest-grossing film (Walt Disney Pictures' *The Santa Clause*), topped the *New York Times* bestseller list with his book *Don't Stand Too Close to a Naked Man*, and appeared in the top rated television series (*Home Improvement*) within the span of one week. *Home Improvement* ran until 1999, for which he was paid US$1.25 million per episode.