Mohr, Jay 1970-

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MOHR, Jay 1970-

PERSONAL:

Born August 23, 1970, in Verona, NJ; son of Jon (an executive) and Virginia (a nurse) Mohr; married Nicole Chamberlain (a model and actress), November, 1998; children: one son.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Hyperion Books, 77 West Sixty-sixth St., Eleventh Floor, New York, NY 10022. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Comedian, actor, and television host. Actor in films, including For Better or Worse, Columbia, 1996; Jerry McGuire, Columbia/TriStar, 1996; Picture Perfect, Twentieth Century-Fox, 1997; Suicide Kings, Artisan Entertainment, 1998; Small Soldiers, DreamWorks, 1998; (voice) Paulie, DreamWorks, 1998; Mafia! (also known as Jane Austen's Mafia), Buena Vista, 1998; (voice) The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue, DreamWorks, 1998; Playing by Heart, Miramax, 1999; Go, Columbia/TriStar, 1999; 200 Cigarettes, Paramount, 1999; Pay It Forward, Warner, 2000; Cherry Falls, October Films, 2000; Speaking of Sex, Studio-Canal France, 2001; Simone, New Line Cinema, 2002; The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Warner, 2002; Seeing Other People, Lantern Lane Entertainment, 2004; Are We There Yet?, Columbia, 2005; and King's Ransom, New Line Cinema, 2005. Actor in television series, including Camp Wilder, American Broadcasting Companies (ABC), 1992; (and writer) Saturday Night Live, National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 1993-95; Jeff Foxworthy Show, ABC, 1996; Local Heroes, Fox, 1996; From the Earth to the Moon (miniseries), Home Box Office (HBO), 1998; Action, Fox, 1999; (narrator) Beyond the Glory, 2001; and Black River (also known as Dean Koontz's Black River; miniseries), 2001. Television appearances include Evening at the Improv, 1982; Lip Service (series), 1992; Two-Drink Minimum, 1994; The Laugh Factory, 1995; What's Wrong with Sports in America?, 1997; Comedy Central Gets Cup Crazy, 1997; Baseball-a-Palooza: All Star, 1997; Comedy Central Presents the New York Friars Club Roast of Drew Carey, 1998; Saturday Night Live specials, 1998-2002; MTV Video Music Awards, 1999; 51st Annual Primetime Emmy Awards, 1999; Comedy Rx: Comics Come Home 5 1999; (host; and writer and executive producer) Mohr Sports (series), 2002; Diet Coke with Lemon Celebrates Forty Years of Laughter: At the Improv, 2002; WFA 1 (series), 2003; (host; and executive producer) Last Comic Standing (series), National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), 2003-04, Comedy Central, 2004—; Weakest Link, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Dennis Miller Live, and Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Actor in television films, including The Barefoot Executive, (ABC), 1995; and in episodes of television series, including West Wing, Scrubs, Mad TV, CSI: Miami. Voice in episodes of Family Guy and The Simpsons.

WRITINGS:

Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jay Mohr began his career as a standup comic and appeared on many television shows, including several of his own, after he first appeared on the small screen. His successful Last Comic Standing first ran on NBC, then in 2004 went to Comedy Central. His earlier shows include Action for Fox, which featured Mohr as Peter Dragon, a pill-popping Hollywood producer. He also wrote, produced, and hosted Mohr Sports for ESPN. Mohr has acted in a long list of films, but his most-remembered role is probably that of sports agent Bob Sugar, who fires Tom Cruise in Jerry McGuire.

Mohr was doing standup at the age of fifteen, and by the time he graduated from high school in 1988 he was making enough money that he decided to skip college. He was hired as a writer and secondary performer by Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 1993, and he wowed audiences with his impressions of Sean Penn and Christopher Walken. But, as Mohr notes in his memoir Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live, he had difficulty getting in front of the camera because of panic attacks which he treated with bouts of excessive drinking and pot smoking until he found appropriate medical care.

It was the heyday of SNL, when the cast included Mike Myers and Phil Hartman. Mohr's dressing room on the show had once been an elevator shaft. He describes some of the SNL performers, including Ellen Cleghorne, Rob Schneider, and Al Franken as jerks, and claims that David Spade "was only on the show so he could sleep with the models." Mohr also recalls a fistfight between Norm Macdonald and a staff writer, re-enforcing SNL's reputation for rowdy behavior. He also writes about the good times hanging out with such stars as Eric Clapton and recalls with fondness the late Chris Farley.

A Kirkus Reviews critic felt that "despite stiff prose," Gasping for Airtime is "an engaging look at the crossroads of comedy and dysfunction." Booklist reviewer Ilene Cooper wrote that Mohr "chronicles those years with the sly wit he's become known for, as well as nostalgia for both the time he had and the kid he was."