Jeff Garlin is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He is best known for playing Murray Goldberg.
Let’s find out some trivia and facts about the actor.
- His full name is Jeffrey Garlin
- He was born on June 5, 1962
- He is an American stand-up comedian and actor
- He is best known for playing Murray Goldberg, patriarch of the eponymous family in the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs
- And Jeff Greene on the HBO sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm
- He also played Marvin on Mad About You and Mort Meyers on Arrested Development for Fox and Netflix
- He has also appeared in ParaNorman, WALL-E, Toy Story 3, and Safety Not Guaranteed, among other films
- Jeff Garlin was born in Chicago, Illinois
- His parents are Gene and Carole (née Crafton) Garlin
- He grew up in Morton Grove, Illinois
- There his father owned a plumbing supply business called Bilko and his mother was active in community theater
- He has a younger brother, Michael
- Jeff Garlin is Jewish
- He attended Hebrew school
- Garlin says he has wanted to be a comedian since the age of eight, when he saw Jimmy Durante perform in Chicago
- Garlin attended Melzer Elementary School in Morton Grove, Illinois
- He enjoyed playing sports at school
- But had to stop after being diagnosed with Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome, a heart ailment
- When Garlin was in sixth grade, his father sold his supply business and the family relocated to South Florida
- He graduated from Nova High School in Davie, Florida, in 1980
- He attended Broward Community College
- Followed by an aborted stint studying film at the University of Miami
- There he first began to perform stand-up comedy
- In 1984, aged 22, Garlin moved back to Chicago to pursue a stand-up comedy career
- He performed with the comedy troupe The Second City
- He worked in the box office with Stephen Colbert
- While living in Wrigleyville, Chicago during the 1980s, Garlin was briefly roommates with Conan O’Brien, who was then a comedy writer
- He remains close to O’Brien, and after O’Brien was removed as host of The Tonight Show in 2010 so that Jay Leno could return, Garlin stated that he would not be a guest on the show again
- Jeff Garlin was hired by comedians Denis Leary and Jon Stewart to help develop their specials
- He worked as a stage director for their shows and edited the scripts
- He worked with Larry David in this same way
- He continues to do standup, where he says he improvises a lot on stage, and feels very relaxed, “maybe too relaxed”
- Jeff Garlin has a variety of television and film appearances to his credit, as an actor and a stand up
- These include Dr. Katz, Arrested Development, Everybody Loves Raymond, Late Show with David Letterman, Tom Goes to the Mayor, The Life and Times of Tim, The Daily Show, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and Entourage
- In 2013, Jeff Garlin signed onto the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs
- The series premiered September 24, 2013
- He would play Murray Goldberg, the father of the title family
- However, in December 2021, as shooting neared completion for the show’s ninth season, Garlin exited the series
- His exit followed misconduct allegations and investigations by the show’s human resources department, initially reported in November 2019
- For the remainder of the season, Garlin’s character continued to appear on the show, portrayed via the use of outtakes, a stand-in, and CGI
- On February 23, 2010, Garlin released a book, My Footprint: Carrying the Weight of the World
- The book is a memoir which documents his journey to lessen both his physical and carbon footprint
- On the comedy podcast network Earwolf, Garlin hosted a show, called By the Way, In Conversation with Jeff Garlin
- The podcast consisted of unscripted talks rather than formal interviews
- The debut episode featured Garlin’s Curb Your Enthusiasm co-star Larry David
- The twice monthly installments were recorded in front of a live audience at Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles
- The last episode of the podcast was released in February 2015
- In March 2018, Garlin was one of the actors who voiced the audiobook A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo
- In August 2020, Garlin was a guest DJ on SiriusXM’s Tom Petty Radio
- Katie Puckrik in The Guardian writes, “British comedy is a touchstone for Garlin”
- Garlin married Marla Beth Cahan on July 24, 1994
- The couple have two sons, James and Duke
- In September 2018, the couple announced their intention to divorce after 24 years of marriage
- In March 2020, Garlin stated that he and Cahan were at the end of their divorce proceedings
- Jeff Garlin is a fan of the Chicago Cubs
- Every year on his birthday, he attends a game with his friend Kevin Cronin, lead singer of REO Speedwagon
- According to his book, Garlin voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 election
- Garlin practices transcendental meditation, which he does twice a day
- He says it has helped him with symptoms of ADHD
- For a few years, Garlin lived with talk-show host Conan O’Brien
- O’Brien has said that sometimes Garlin woke him up in the middle of the night and made him perform skits
- Garlin’s dog on the television show The Goldbergs lives with him in real life
- When he was in his late 20s, Garlin had surgery in Oklahoma City to correct a heart condition called Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome
- This syndrome is a defect in an accessory electrical conduction pathway in the heart that results in tachycardia
- Jeff Garlin said he was an early recipient (#72) of the surgery, which millions of people have since undergone
- In February 2000, before filming began on Curb Your Enthusiasm, he had a stroke at the age of 37
- During the early episodes of Season One, he had noticeably slurred speech that later improved
- In addition to epilepsy and attention deficit disorder, he also has type II diabetes, which he controls with diet and exercis
- Garlin has written about his problems with food
- He has discussed his weight problems publicly
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