Amy Schumer
Amy Beth Schumer is an American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, producer, and director. Schumer ventured into comedy in the early 2000s before appearing as a contestant on the fifth season of the NBC reality competition series Last Comic Standing in 2007. From 2013 to 2016, she was the creator, co-producer, co-writer, and star of the Comedy Central sketch comedy series Inside Amy Schumer, for which she received a Peabody Award and was nominated for five Primetime Emmy Awards, winning Outstanding Variety Sketch Series in 2015.
Schumer wrote and made her film debut in a starring role in Trainwreck earning a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. She then starred in the comedy films Snatched, and I Feel Pretty. She created, produced and starred in the HBO documentary series Expecting Amy, and the Hulu comedy-drama series Life & Beth.
She made her Broadway debut in Steve Martin's Meteor Shower for which she earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play. Schumer has earned two Grammy Award nominations for Best Comedy Album for Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo, and Best Spoken Word Album for narrating her memoir, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo.
Early life and education
Schumer was born on June 1, 1981, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, to Sandra Jane and Gordon David Schumer, who owned a baby furniture company. Schumer's father was born to a Jewish family from Ukraine. She is a second cousin, once removed, of U.S. Senator and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Her mother is from a Protestant background and has deep New England roots, and converted to Judaism before her marriage. Schumer was raised Jewish and says she had to deal with antisemitism as a child, but is not observant as an adult. Her mother is of Puritan ancestry dating back to the colonial-era Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 2017, as a guest on Finding Your Roots, Schumer learned that in 1704, three children from her ancestor Thomas Tarbell's family were captured at Groton, Massachusetts, in a French-Abenaki raid and taken to Montreal. The girl was ransomed by a French-Canadian family and ultimately joined a French Catholic convent; the two boys were each adopted by Mohawk families at Kahnawake and became thoroughly assimilated. They married Mohawk women and some of their descendants became chiefs. There are still Mohawk by the surname Tarbell in Kahnawake and Akwesasne, another village reserve on the St. Lawrence River founded by the brothers.Through the success of her father's furniture company in Manhattan, Schumer's household was wealthy during her early years. When she was nine years old her father's business failed and he went bankrupt. He was subsequently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Her parents divorced when she was 12.
Schumer moved to Long Island with her mother and lived in Rockville Centre where she attended South Side High School. She was voted both "Class Clown" and "Teacher's Worst Nightmare" upon graduation in 1999.
She attended the Hebrew school of the Central Synagogue of Nassau County, a Reform synagogue in Rockville Centre, where her mother served on the school's board.
After graduating from high school, Schumer attended Towson University in Towson, Maryland, where she graduated with a degree in theater in 2003. After graduating from college, she returned to New York City, where she studied at the William Esper Studio for two years and worked as a bartender and a waitress. She also lived with her boyfriend in Santa Barbara, California, where she worked as a pedicab driver. She has a younger sister, Kim Caramele, who is a comedy writer and a producer, and a half-brother, Jason Stein, who is a musician in Chicago, Illinois.
Career
2003–2012: actress
After graduating with a degree in theater from Towson University in 2003 and moving to New York City, Schumer portrayed a young woman diagnosed with breast cancer in the Off-Off-Broadway black comedy Keeping Abreast. She started doing stand-up comedy on June 1, 2004, when she first performed at Gotham Comedy Club. A few years later, she and Kevin Kane co-founded The Collective, which is a theater group that publishes and performs socially relevant and accessible work.In 2007, Schumer recorded a Live at Gotham episode for Comedy Central before appearing on Last Comic Standing; she later recalled that she thought of the episode as her "big break". Rebounding from an unsuccessful audition for an earlier season, she advanced to the finals of the fifth season of the NBC reality television talent show Last Comic Standing and placed fourth. Schumer said in April 2011, "Last Comic was totally fun. I had a great time because there was no pressure on me; I had been doing stand-up around two years. I wasn't supposed to do well. So every time I advanced it was a happy surprise. I kept it honest on the show and it served me well."
Schumer co-starred in the Comedy Central reality show Reality Bites Back in 2008. In 2009, she appeared in an advertising campaign for Butterfinger. Schumer was a recurring guest on Fox News late-night program Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld between 2007 and 2012. Her first Comedy Central Presents special aired on April 2, 2010. She served as a co-host of A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus in 2011, later titled Hoppus on Music. She has also written for Cosmopolitan. Schumer did an episode of WTF with Marc Maron podcast on March 3, 2011, in which she discusses her early life in more detail. Schumer has appeared in roles on the NBC comedy series 30 Rock, the Adult Swim mockumentary series Delocated, and the two HBO series, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Girls. She was also a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show and the Opie and Anthony radio show.
Schumer released a stand-up comedy album, Cutting, in 2011. Her stand-up comedy special Mostly Sex Stuff premiered on Comedy Central on August 18, 2012, to positive reviews. Schumer said in February 2012, "I don't like the observational stuff. I like tackling the stuff nobody else talks about, like the darkest, most serious thing about yourself. I talk about life and sex and personal stories and stuff everybody can relate to, and some can't." She acted in three films in 2012: the independent comedy Price Check, the comedy-drama Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, and the independent comedy Sleepwalk with Me. Schumer also appeared on The Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen in September 2011, and The Comedy Central Roast of Roseanne Barr in August 2012. In June 2012, Schumer began work on a sketch comedy series for Comedy Central. The show included single-camera vignettes of Schumer playing "heightened versions" of herself. The vignettes are linked together with footage of Schumer's stand-up.
2013–2019: ''Inside Amy Schumer''
The TV show Inside Amy Schumer premiered on Comedy Central on April 30, 2013. Inside Amy Schumer was picked up for a second season that began in 2014. A behind-the-scenes miniseries entitled Behind Amy Schumer premiered in 2012. The third season premiered on April 21, 2015, with a fourth season ordered the same day. In 2014, Schumer embarked on her Back Door Tour to promote the second season of her show. The show was closed by Bridget Everett, whom Schumer cites as her favorite live performer. She also appeared as a guest on an episode of comedian Jerry Seinfeld's Internet series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee in 2014.She hosted the 2015 MTV Movie Awards, which took place on April 11. Schumer wrote and played her first leading film role in Trainwreck, co-starring Bill Hader, which was released on July 17, 2015. In August 2015, Jennifer Lawrence said she and Schumer planned to co-star in a film for which they and Schumer's sister Kim were co-writing a screenplay. However, Schumer later revealed the project was on the "back burner". Schumer performed as opening act for Madonna on three New York City dates of the singer's Rebel Heart Tour in September 2015. On October 17, 2015, Schumer's comedy special Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo premiered on HBO. In 2016, it was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Variety Special, Writing, and Directing. It also garnered her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
Schumer started her first world tour on August 26 in Dublin. Also that year, Schumer wrote a memoir, entitled The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo. It held the top position on The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Seller list for two weeks in September 2016 and garnered her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. Schumer made her Broadway debut in 2017 acting in Steve Martin's comedy play Meteor Shower alongside Keegan-Michael Key, Laura Benanti and Jeremy Shamos. The play revolves around about two couples in 1993 who spend an evening with each other. David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote "Schumer is one of four terrific performers who juice the entertainment of this high-sheen production...which would never have made it this far without Martin’s name behind it, or more crucially, without the marquee draw of Schumer making her Broadway debut." Schumer was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play losing to Glenda Jackson for the revival of Edward Albee's Three Tall Women.
In 2018, she starred in the comedy film I Feel Pretty which received negative reviews from critics. Spotify released the original podcast Amy Schumer Presents: 3 Girls, 1 Keith on June 21, 2018, starring Schumer and her best comedy friends Rachel Feinstein, Bridget Everett and Keith Robinson as they talk about comedy, pop culture, politics and their personal lives. She released her standup special Amy Schumer: Growing on Netflix to received positive reviews. Schumer receiving a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special nomination. That same year she appeared as herself in the CBS comedy No Activity and the HBO series Crashing.