Dave Chappelle


David Khari Webber Chappelle is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He starred in and co-created the satirical comedy sketch series Chappelle's Show before quitting in the middle of production during the third season. After a hiatus, Chappelle returned to performing stand-up comedy across the United States. By 2006, Chappelle was called the "comic genius of America" by Esquire magazine and, in 2013, "the best" by a Billboard writer. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him No. 9 in their "50 Best Stand Up Comics of All Time".
Chappelle has appeared in various films, including Robin Hood: Men in Tights, The Nutty Professor, Con Air, You've Got Mail, Blue Streak, Undercover Brother, Dave Chappelle's Block Party, Chi-Raq, and A Star Is Born. His first lead role was in the 1998 comedy film Half Baked, which he co-wrote. Chappelle also starred in the ABC comedy series Buddies. In 2016, he signed a $20-million-per-release comedy-special deal with Netflix and released six stand-up specials under the deal.
As a stand-up comedian, he has released his first comedy special Killin' Them Softly for HBO, followed by For What It's Worth for Showtime. He has since released eight standup specials for Netflix. He has won six Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Album for The Age of Spin, Equanimity & The Bird Revelation, Sticks & Stones, The Closer, What's in a Name?, and The Dreamer.
He has received numerous accolades, including six Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2019, which is presented by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as America's highest comedy honor. Chappelle has received two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for hosting Saturday Night Live in 2016 and 2020.

Early life and education

David Khari Webber Chappelle was born on August 24, 1973, in Washington, D.C. His father, William David Chappelle III, was a professor of vocal performance and the dean of students at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. His mother, Yvonne Seon, worked for Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, is a Unitarian Universalist minister, and worked as a professor and university administrator at several institutions including Wright State University and Prince George's Community College. Chappelle has a stepmother and a stepbrother.
Chappelle grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and attended Woodlin Elementary School. His parents were politically active, and family house visitors included Pete Seeger and Johnny Hartman. Hartman predicted Chappelle would be a comedian and, around this time, Chappelle's comic inspiration came from Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor. After his parents separated, Chappelle stayed in Washington with his mother while spending summers with his father in Ohio. In high school he worked as an usher in Ford's Theatre. He attended DC's Eastern High School for a short time before transferring to Duke Ellington School of the Arts, where he studied theater arts, graduating in 1991.

Career

1990–2002: Early career and breakthrough

Chappelle was featured in a montage of random people telling jokes in the first episode of ABC's America's Funniest People, airing on September 13, 1990. Following his high school graduation, Chappelle moved to New York City to pursue a career as a comedian. He performed at Harlem's Apollo Theater in front of the "Amateur Night" audience, but he was booed off stage. Chappelle described the experience as the moment that gave him the courage to continue his show business aspirations. He quickly made a name for himself on the New York comedy circuit, even performing in the city's parks. In addition to weekend stand-up gigs, he honed his craft at Monday night "open mic" performances at places such as the Boston Comedy Club on West 3rd Street, as late as the summer 1994. In 1992, he won critical and popular acclaim for his television appearance in Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam on HBO. It was his appearance on this show that allowed his popularity to truly begin rising, eventually allowing him to become a regular guest on late-night television shows such as Politically Incorrect, Late Show with David Letterman, The Howard Stern Show, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Whoopi Goldberg nicknamed him "The Kid". At 19, he made his film debut as "Ahchoo" in Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He also appeared on Star Search three times but lost to competing comedian Lester Barrie; Chappelle later joked about becoming more successful than Barrie. The same year, Chappelle was offered the role of Benjamin Buford "Bubba" Blue in Forrest Gump. Concerned the character was demeaning and the movie would bomb, he turned down the part. He parodied the film in the 1997 short Bowl of Pork, where a dim-witted black man is responsible for the Rodney King beating, the LA riots and O. J. Simpson's being accused of murder. Chappelle played another supporting role in an early Doug Liman film, Getting In, in 1994. At age 19, he was the opening act for R&B soul singer Aretha Franklin.
Chappelle attracted the attention of television network executives and developed numerous pilots but none were picked up for development into a series. In 1995, he made a guest appearance on an episode of ABC's popular sitcom Home Improvement. The storyline had Chappelle and real-life friend and comedian Jim Breuer ask Tim Taylor for advice on their girlfriends. The characters' single outing in the episode proved so popular that ABC decided to give them their own spin-off sitcom titled Buddies. However, after taping a pilot episode, Breuer was fired and replaced with actor Christopher Gartin. Buddies premiered in March 1996 to disappointing ratings and the show was canceled after only five episodes out of 13 that had been produced.
After the failure of Buddies, Chappelle starred in another pilot. According to Chappelle, the network was uncomfortable with the African-American cast and wanted white actors added. Chappelle resisted and subsequently accused the network of racism. Shortly afterward Chappelle's father died and, after returning to Ohio, he considered leaving the entertainment business.
He later appeared as a stand-up insult comic who targets patrons of a nightclub in the 1996 comedy The Nutty Professor starring Eddie Murphy, one of his major comedic influences. He had a minor role in 1997's Con Air. At the beginning of 1998, he did a stand-up performance for HBO Comedy Half-Hour. That same year, he appeared in "Pilots and Pens Lost", an episode of The Larry Sanders Shows sixth season, in which he and the executives of the show's unnamed television network satirize the treatment that scriptwriters and show creators were subjected to, as well as the executives' knee-jerk tendencies toward racial stereotypes.
He and Neal Brennan co-wrote the 1998 cult stoner film Half Baked, Chappelle's first starring role, about a group of marijuana-smoking friends trying to get their other friend out of jail. It made money at the box office and remains a classic "stoner" film, a genre that includes the Cheech & Chong films as well as more recent fare like Judd Apatow's Pineapple Express. In December 1998, Chappelle appeared as Tom Hanks' character's friend and confidant in You've Got Mail. In 1999, he appeared in the Martin Lawrence film Blue Streak.
In 2000, Chappelle recorded his first hour-long HBO special, Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly, in Washington, D.C. He also starred alongside Norm Macdonald in the 2000 comedy film Screwed. He followed this with an appearance as "Conspiracy Brother" in the 2002 racial satire Undercover Brother. During the early 2000s, Chappelle was a member of the Spitkicker artist collective, along with many hip-hop artists like De La Soul and Talib Kweli.

2003–2006: ''Chappelle's Show''

In 2003, Chappelle debuted his own weekly sketch comedy show on Comedy Central called Chappelle's Show. The show parodied many aspects of American culture, including racial stereotypes, politics and pop culture. Along with comedy sketches, the show also featured musical performances by mostly hip-hop and soul artists. He promoted the work of other black comedians as well, most notably Paul Mooney and Charlie Murphy.
Due to the show's popularity, Comedy Central's new parent company Viacom offered Chappelle a $55 million contract to continue production of Chappelle's Show for two more years while allowing him to do side projects. Chappelle has said that sketches are not his favorite form of comedy, and that the show's format was similar to short films.
In June 2004, based on the popularity of the "Rick James" sketch, it was announced that Chappelle was in talks to portray James in a biopic from Paramount Pictures, also owned by Viacom. James' estate disagreed with the proposed comical tone of the film and put a halt to the talks.
That same month, Chappelle recorded his second comedy special, this time airing on Showtime, Dave Chappelle: For What It's Worth, at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium, where Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Robin Williams had performed.

Season 3 problems

Season 3 was scheduled to begin airing on May 31, 2005, but earlier in May, Chappelle surprised fans and the entertainment industry when he abruptly left during production and took a trip to South Africa. Chappelle said that he was unhappy with the direction the show had taken, and expressed in an interview with Time magazine his need for reflection in the face of tremendous stress. Chappelle said on Inside the Actors Studio that the death of his father seven years prior influenced his decision to go to South Africa. By throwing himself into his work, he had not taken a chance to mourn his father's death. He also said the rumors that he was on drug or psychiatric treatment only persuaded him to stay in South Africa.
In an interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired on February 3, 2006, Chappelle stated that burnout, losing his creative control, and a work environment that was uncomfortable, were some of the reasons he left the show. He did not rule out returning to Chappelle's Show to "finish what we started", but promised that he would not return without changes to the production. Chappelle expressed disdain at the possibility of his material from the unfinished third season being aired, saying that to do so would be "a bully move", and that he would not return to the show if Comedy Central were to air the unfinished material. On July 9, 2006, Comedy Central aired the first episode of Chappelle's Show: The Lost Episodes. After the DVD release, Chappelle was interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN and reiterated he would not return to Chappelle's Show. An uncensored DVD release of the episodes was made available on July 25.
Chappelle's abrupt departure from the show continues to be a focus of interviews and profiles of him and of his own comedy. His decision to quit the show meant walking away from a $50 million contract with Comedy Central and forming a rift with longtime collaborator Neal Brennan. The show still plays in syndication on several television networks, despite the relatively small number of episodes compared to most American syndicated television programs. In Bird Revelation, Chappelle draws an analogy between his departure and the book Pimp, the memoir of Iceberg Slim.