Howie Mandel: An Unauthorized Biography

By Belmont and Belcourt Biographies

This is the unlikely story of a multi-talented stand-up comedian, actor, game show host and voice artist who has left an indelible mark on the entertainment business. Howie Mandel began as a high school dropout turned carpet salesman who went on to own his own carpet sales business. After a fateful performance at a comedy club, Mandel's life veered in a completely different direction. For the last thirty years, Howie Mandel has been a household name and familiar face in show business.

Even though he got his break by a stroke of good luck, Mandel is the real deal. He's shown his talents on the stage and the screen, and he's demonstrated his ability to play the funnyman as well as take on serious dramatic roles. We know him best for his stand-up acts, as well as his work on the unique children's cartoon series, Bobby's World. More recently, he's been appearing on reality television as a host, judge and prankster. As a stage comedian, Howie Mandel performs almost two hundred gigs a year throughout Canada and the United States.

From family to comedy to the future, all you need to know about Howie Mandel is right here, right now, in the most up to date coverage of Howie Mandel's life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Price World Publishing
• Release date: Apr 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781619841314

Book preview

Early Life

Howard Michael Mandel was born November 29, 1955, in Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, to parents Albert and Evelyn Mandel. Evelyn was just twenty-three, Albert was twenty-nine, and Howard (or Howie, as he was later called) was their first child. 

According to Howie, I have absolutely no recollection of my infancy, but I’m told I was the happiest, most idyllic child, not to mention the cleanest child known to man. His mother’s inclination to keep an exceptionally clean and tidy house would later figure strongly in Mandel’s life. For the most part, however, Mandel has positive memories of his childhood.

The house I grew up in was filled with humor, he shares. "My recollections range from my parents playing comedy albums to watching variety shows, talk shows, funny movies, and cartoons. Television has always been a huge part of who I am. Nothing touched me more and shaped my sense of humor more than sitting down with my family to watch Allen Funt’s Candid Camera."

A few years later, a baby brother would come along, changing the Mandel family dynamic. Despite all the excitement of a new baby in the household, Howie admits he had trouble with his younger brother, Stevie. After all, up until then, he’d been the only child in the household.

One time he stuck his hand through the bars of his crib, and I pulled on it as hard as I could. He had to go to the hospital because I ripped his arm out of the socket. That was horrible, but again, I got a lot of attention for that, Howie shamefully recalls.

The addition of a new brother also meant that his parents’ attention would have to be split between the two sons. Howie says, I now believe that my brother, Steve, is the reason I have become a performer today. From the moment the baby" appeared, I spent every waking moment trying to get all the attention. Regardless of whether that attention was positive or negative, it was attention just the same … the sick need that I have to be accepted and appreciated by people I don’t know stemmed