Best-known for his surreal and digressive stand-up, British comedian and actor Eddie Izzard was born on February 7, 1962, in Aden, Yemen, where his English parents -- Dorothy Ella, a nurse and midwife, and Harold John Izzard, an accountant -- worked for British Petroleum. Izzard worked as a street performer and in smaller comedy venues throughout the mid-to-late 1980s; his big break came when he appeared in Hysteria III, a 1991 AIDS fundraiser held at the London Palladium, and did his now-famous "Raised by wolves" sketch. After that, he drew bigger and bigger audiences, and in 1993 hired the Ambassadors Theatre in London's West End for the first of many successful one-man shows. With _Eddie Izzard: Live at the Ambassadors .
Born in Yemen while his parents were there on business. He has a brother named Mark. His mother died when Eddie was six years old.
He was nominated for Broadways 2003 Tony Award as best actor (play) for a revival of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.
He is dyslexic.
He auditioned for the role of Rodney Skinner (The Invisible Man) in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen , but lost out to Tony Curran.
His comedy routines frequently contain the following elements: references to jam, banjos, bananas, monkeys, and the names Jeff, Kev, and Steve; world history; the Bible, using an impression of James Mason to portray God; pantomime; mumbling; and foreign languages, sometimes actually performing in French or German for English-speaking audiences.
He speaks French with such fluency that hes performed multiple comedy shows entirely in French. Same goes with German.
He was touring in New Zealand during the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He heard about the filming and, being such a big fan of the books, asked if he could make an appearance in the films. He was declined.
He uses 3 distinct voices in most of his one-man shows - God (James Mason ), Sean Connery (several, including Noah) and Mrs. Badcrumble (Scottish clarinet teacher). In real life, Mrs. Badcrumble was his piano teacher as a young boy.
Sarah Townsend composes the music for all of his shows.
In 1991 he was nominated for the Perrier Award.
During the 1999 television special Python Night: 30 Years of Monty Python , which Izzard hosted, John Cleese said Izzard was the lost Python. Former "Doctor Who" star Tom Baker also championed Izzard to play the Doctor when the series was revived in 2005. Baker described Izzard as "so mysterious and strange".
In a 2005 poll to find the Comedians Comedian, Izzard was voted as number 19 out of the top 50 greatest comedy acts in history by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
Originally played Darren McCarthy in Day 6 of "24" . He dropped out due to scheduling conflicts after only a day of filming. He was replaced by David Hunt.
Eddie spent August and September 2009 literally running around the UK, from London, England, to Cardiff, Wales, to Belfast, Northern Ireland, to Edinburgh, Scotland, and back to London. He ran approximately 30 miles per day for a total of about 1100 miles, to raise money for the charity "Sport Relief," which is part of "Comic Relief.".
He is a prominent celebrity supporter of Britains Labour Party, has made financial donations to the party and appeared on stage at the 2009 party conference.
In 2008, he was touring the U.S. with his one-man show, "Stripped.".
In June 2013, United Kingdom, Europe, and South Africa: Touring with Force Majeure.
In late spring 2010, he was touring Canada with his one man show, Stripped.
In April 2007, he was starring in the F/X series, "The Riches" , airing on Tuesday nights and repeats on Sunday and Monday nights.
In July 2010, he played the role in David Mamet s play, "Race", on Broadway in New York City.
In August 2003, he was touring the United States, Australia, and New Zealand with his new show, "Sexie", throughout the last half of the year.
He made a surprise appearance as one of the "Bruces" in the "Philophers Song" sketch during the 2014 reunion show for Monty Pythons Flying Circus.
Glen Quagmire chooses Eddie Izzard over Dame Judi Dench in one of Peter Griffins hypothetical "Who would you rather do?" games, in the "Family Guy" episode "Screams of Silence: the story of Brenda Q".
A prominent unionist, he actively campaigned in the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014 for Scotland to stay in the UK and then subsequently campaigned in the referendum on Britains membership of the European Union in 2016 for the UK to stay in Europe. He was on the winning side in the first and the losing side in the second.
He campaigned for the Labour Party in the 2015 General Election, and announced his intention to run as Mayor of London for Labour.
He has said that he sometimes gets mistaken for Kiefer Sutherland.
He came out as being a transvestite in 1985.
As of 2017, he has performed his stand-up gigs in over 40 countries in 4 languages (English, German, French and Spanish).
[on running marathons]: Animals in the wild are lean, and I think we,should be too.
[on spending time in New York City]: They only have a few days -- go see,a big musical like Billy Elliot. If you have more time, see me show.
Hitler was a Mass-Murdering Fuckhead, as many important Historians have,said. . .
But with dogs, we do have "bad dog. " Bad dog exists. "Bad dog! Bad dog! Stole a biscuit, bad dog!" The dog is saying, "Who are you to judge me? You human beings who’ve had genocide, war against people of different creeds, colors, religions, and I stole a biscuit?! Is that a crime? People of the world!""Well, if you put it that way, I think you’ve got a point. Have another biscuit, sorry.
If you are an LGBT+ person and you come out, you have to go through your knight’s quest to create ground for yourself, to create a space for yourself, to stand there and say, “I exist. I have no reason to feel guilt or shame. I am proud to exist, and while I’m not perfect, I deserve to exist in society just like anyone else. ”This became my first big fight. While I consider myself to be fantastically boring, I realized that if I took on my own sexual identity and came out and just told people about it and tried to have a chat with them—tried to be offhand and casual about it—and tried to build our place in society and humanity, then that would be a good mission. This is where I exist in society. I am just this guy. I am transgender, and I exist. But that is just my sexuality. More important than that is that I perform comedy, I perform drama, I run marathons, and I’m an activist in politics. These are the things I do. How you self-identify with your sexuality matters not one wit. What you do in life—what you do to add to the human existence—that is what matters. That is the beautiful thing.
We must have been hunters and gatherers but some of us were just waiters and hopers.
I try to just talk about human stories and what I think about religion or teapots or whatever.
I just believe in the goodwill of people, the power of people to do something positive.
Never put a sock in a toaster.
I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from.
So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naive, I feel!.
