Please Rewind Talent Wall

Andrew Dice Clay

Andrew Dice Clay has spent much of his career moving between the performer and the persona. Born in New York City in 1957 and raised in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay, he was entertaining his family with impressions at five and playing drums by seven. As a teenager, he worked weddings and bar mitzvahs on the Catskill Mountains circuit under the name Clay Silvers before turning to comedy full time. Clay began performing stand-up in 1978 at Pips in Sheepshead Bay. His early act leaned on impressions, including a character called “The Diceman,” but that figure gradually became an alter ego of its own. After moving to Los Angeles, Clay worked at the Comedy Store and began picking up television and film appearances. Early screen credits included Wacko, Making the Grade, Pretty in Pink and Casual Sex?, along with a regular role as Max Goldman on Crime Story. The late 1980s and early 1990s established Clay as a major—and frequently contested—stand-up draw. His HBO special The Diceman Cometh expanded his national audience, while his comedy album Dice was certified gold. In 1990, he became the first comedian to sell out two consecutive nights at Madison Square Garden. That same period also brought protests and disputes over the sexist and homophobic content of his act, including objections surrounding his appearance as host of Saturday Night Live. His acting career has often worked best when filmmakers use the tension between Clay’s public persona and a more grounded presence. He starred in The Adventures of Ford Fairlane and later appeared as versions of himself in Entourage and Raising Hope. His dramatic role opposite Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine gave him the chance to pursue the kind of work he had long wanted to do. He later played record executive Frank “Buck” Rodgers in HBO’s Vinyl and Lorenzo Campana, the father of Lady Gaga’s Ally, in A Star Is Born. Together, those roles show an actor able to step away from the Diceman without pretending that larger-than-life history is not still in the room.