Mayim Bialik
Mayim Chaya Bialik is an American actress and former game show host. From 1991 to 1995, she played the title character of the NBC sitcom Blossom. From 2010 to 2019, she played neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler on the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory, for which she was nominated four times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and won the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2015 and 2017. Bialik shared hosting duties of Jeopardy! with Ken Jennings on a rotating basis between August 2021 and December 2023.
Early life and education
Mayim Chaya Bialik was born on December 12, 1975, in San Diego, California, to Beverly and Barry Bialik. Her family were Jewish immigrants who lived in the Bronx, New York City. Three of her four grandparents migrated from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. After being raised as a Reform Jew, she described herself as Modern Orthodox Jewish in 2013. Bialik became a Bat Mitzvah and has called herself a "staunch Zionist". Her name, Mayim, originates in a family nickname of her great-grandmother, Miriam. The Hebrew-language poet Hayim Nahman Bialik was her great-great-great-granduncle.Bialik graduated in 1993 from North Hollywood High School in Los Angeles, California. In acknowledgment of her acting commitments, she was granted a deferred acceptance and attended University of California, Los Angeles. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in neuroscience, with minors in Hebrew and Jewish studies, in 2000.
Bialik has said she did not have the grades needed for medical school. She went on to study for a doctorate in neuroscience. She took a break from studies in 2005 to return to acting. She returned to earn her PhD degree in neuroscience from UCLA in 2007 under Dr. James McCracken. Her dissertation was titled "Hypothalamic regulation in relation to maladaptive, obsessive-compulsive, affiliative and satiety behaviors in Prader–Willi syndrome".
Career
1987–2009: Child actress and other roles
Bialik started her career as a child actress in the late 1980s. Her early roles included the 1988 horror film Pumpkinhead and guest appearances on The Facts of Life and Beauty and the Beast. In 1988 to 1989, she appeared in eight episodes of the sitcom Webster as Frieda, Webster's classmate. It was for Beauty and the Beast, where she played a sewer-dwelling girl named Ellie that she obtained her Screen Actors Guild card. Bialik appeared in three episodes of MacGyver as Lisa Woodman. She appeared in Beaches, playing Bette Midler's character as a young girl. Many reviews singled out her performance as a strong point in the film. She appeared in the music video for Michael Jackson's song "Liberian Girl". In 1990, she was tied to two television pilots, Fox's Molloy and NBC's Blossom. Molloy produced six episodes for a tryout run, followed by the shooting of the pilot special for Blossom. The latter aired two weeks before the Fox series and garnered higher ratings. When Molloy folded after its six episodes, Blossom premiered as a mid-season replacement on January 3, 1991, and aired until May 22, 1995.On September 8, 1992, Bialik was a celebrity contestant guest in the episode "Disturbing The Heavenly Peace", the first episode of the second season of the PBS game show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? She had a major part in the Woody Allen comedy film Don't Drink the Water in 1994. Between 1995 and 2005, she mostly did voiceover work for cartoons, such as The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, Disney's Recess and Kim Possible, Cartoon Network's Johnny Bravo, and Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold!. She appeared in the feature film Kalamazoo? and in three episodes of the HBO comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm as Jodi Funkhouser, the daughter of a friend of Larry David. The character transitioned to male in a later episode, going by the name Joey, and was recast to Chaz Bono. Bialik also made guest appearances as a fictionalized version of herself in the series Fat Actress and in an episode of Saving Grace. Bialik had a recurring role as the high school guidance counselor in ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager. In 2009, Clinton Kelly nominated her for a makeover on TLC's What Not to Wear.
2010–2019: ''The Big Bang Theory''
She joined the cast of The Big Bang Theory as Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler in 2010. Her first appearance was in the season3 finale as a potential love interest for the character of Sheldon Cooper. In season 4, she began as a recurring character playing Sheldon's "friend that's a girl, but not a girlfriend." Beginning with the 8th episode of season4, she became part of the main cast. Amy is a neurobiologist, a field that is related to Bialik's real-life doctorate in neuroscience. Bialik's performance in The Big Bang Theory earned her Emmy Award nominations in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Bialik was one of seven actresses who had a "quirky" personality to audition for the role. Before she joined the cast, in the episode "The Bat Jar Conjecture", Raj suggests recruiting the real-life Bialik to their Physics Bowl team, saying "You know who's apparently very smart is the girl who played TV's Blossom. She got a Ph.D. in neuroscience or something." She is one of the guest stars on the 2014 Steve Carell improvisational sketch show Riot.In August 2014, Bialik began hosting a revival of Candid Camera on TV Land along with Peter Funt. Her most recent movie appearance was in a Lifetime Christmas movie, The Flight Before Christmas. In 2019, Bialik appeared in a commercial for IBM. On August 20, 2019, it was announced that she and her new production company, Sad Clown Productions, had signed exclusive contracts with Warner Bros. Entertainment. Mackenzie Gabriel-Vaught, a former executive at Chuck Lorre Productions, is Sad Clown's head of development. Sad Clown Productions, in conjunction with Jim Parsons's That's Wonderful Productions, BBC Studios, and Miranda Hart, executive-produces a starring vehicle for Bialik, Call Me Kat, based on the British series Miranda. A co-production of Warner Bros. and Fox Entertainment, it premiered on Fox on January 3, 2021, and was renewed for a second season in May 2021.
During her time on The Big Bang Theory, Bialik wrote two books in addition to co-authoring two books with pediatrician Jay Gordon. Beyond the Sling is about attachment parenting, while Mayim's Vegan Table contains over 100 of Bialik's vegan recipes. Her third book, Girling Up, is about the struggles of and ways in which girls grow up, showing the scientific ways in which their bodies change. Its successor, Boying Up analyzes the science, anatomy, and mentality of growing up as a boy, and the physical and mental changes and challenges boys face while transitioning from adolescence to adulthood.
2021–2023: ''Jeopardy!'' host and directorial debut
From May 31 to June 11, 2021, Bialik was a guest host of Jeopardy! On August 11, 2021, it was announced that she would host the series' future primetime specials and spinoffs. When executive producer Mike Richards resigned as host after one week, it was announced that Bialik would guest-host the show for three weeks. Her contract was extended to seven weeks; she would then alternate with Ken Jennings for the rest of the calendar year. On December 8, 2021, it was announced that Bialik and Jennings would continue to host the show for the rest of the 2021–22 season. On July 27, 2022, it was announced that Bialik and Jennings would be the show's permanent hosts in a job-sharing arrangement.In May 2023, it was announced that Bialik would temporarily leave Jeopardy! and would not serve as host for the rest of season 39 due to her support of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. Ken Jennings hosted the remainder of season 39 during Bialik's absence. In December 2023, it was announced that she would no longer host the syndicated version of Jeopardy! Despite this, the show is still open to having her host the prime-time specials and spin-offs. Michael Davies, the executive producer of the show, told Rolling Stone in January 2025 that "Mayim, which was absolutely her right, elected not to cross the picket line during the strike. And as Ken got more reps, I think he got better and he earned the job."
Bialik wrote and directed her first film, As They Made Us, about a divorced mom juggling her family's needs and her own quest for love. Dustin Hoffman and Candice Bergen starred as well as Simon Helberg, Bialik's former The Big Bang Theory castmate. The film was expected to premiere in late 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed filming. Ash Christian was attached to the project, but died in August 2020. Principal photography began in June 2021. The film was released on April 8, 2022.
In May 2023, Bialik competed as a contestant on an episode of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune against Vanna White and Ken Jennings. Bialik won $62,200 for Mental Wealth Alliance.