Background and career
Drew Allison Carey (born May 23, 1958) is an American comedian, game show host, and actor. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and making a name for himself in stand-up comedy, Carey gained stardom in his own sitcom, The Drew Carey Show, and as host of the American version of the improv comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, both of which aired on ABC. He then appeared in several films, television series, music videos, a made-for-television film, and a computer game. Since 2007, Carey has hosted the game show The Price Is Right on CBS. Carey has diverse interests spanning sports, entertainment, and politics. He has worked as a photographer at U.S. men's national team soccer games. Carey is a minority owner of the Major League Soccer team Seattle Sounders FC, which won the MLS Cup, first in 2016 and again in 2019. He briefly participated in professional wrestling, entering the 2001 Royal Rumble, and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2011. Carey has hosted a series of mini-documentaries on Reason.tv, advocating for libertarian principles such as private highway ownership, medical marijuana, and opposition to eminent domain abuses.
Carey was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 23, 1958, to Lewis Carey and Beulah Neal. He has two older brothers, Neil (1946–2010) and Roger (born 1952), and was raised in the Old Brooklyn neighborhood of Cleveland. Drew was only eight years old when Lewis died from a heart attack. Drew played the cornet and trumpet in the marching band of James Ford Rhodes High School from which he graduated in 1976. Carey continued on to college at Kent State University (KSU) and was a part of Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He was expelled twice for poor academic performance and left KSU after three years. Upon leaving the university, Carey enlisted into the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1980 and served for six years as a field radio operator in the 25th Marine Regiment in Ohio. He moved to Las Vegas for a few months in 1983 and for a short time worked as a bank teller and a waiter at Denny's.
Carey's early comedy influences included local Cleveland television hosts Ernie Anderson and "Big Chuck" Schodowski as well as humor magazines such as Mad, Sick, and Cracked. In 1985, Carey began his comedy career by following a suggestion by David Lawrence (a disc jockey friend who had been paying Carey to write jokes for Lawrence's radio show in Cleveland) to go to the library and check out books on how to write jokes. The following year, after winning an open mic contest, Carey became Master of Ceremonies at the Cleveland Comedy Club. He performed at comedy clubs over the next few years in Cleveland and Los Angeles. Carey's first national exposure was competing in the 1988 Star Search. Carey was working as a stand-up comedian when he appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in November 1991. His performance that night impressed Carson, who invited Carey to the couch next to his desk; this was considered a rare honor for any comedian. That same year, Carey joined the 14th Annual Young Comedians Special on HBO and made his first appearance on Late Night with David Letterman. In 1994, Carey wrote his own stand-up comedy special, Drew Carey: Human Cartoon, which aired on Showtime and won a CableACE Award for Best Writing.
Carey's early stand-up career led to supporting roles on television shows during which he developed the character of a hapless middle-class bachelor. In 1993, Carey had a small role in the film Coneheads as a taxi passenger. In 1994, he co-starred with John Caponera in The Good Life, a short-lived sitcom on NBC. After the show was cancelled, Bruce Helford, a writer on the show, hired Carey as a consultant for the television show Someone Like Me.
After their stint on Someone Like Me, Carey and Helford developed and produced the storyline for The Drew Carey Show. The sitcom revolved around a fictionalized version of Carey, as he took on the stresses of life and work with his group of childhood friends. The show premiered on September 13, 1995, on ABC. In his autobiography, Carey revealed his frustration with having to deal with censors and being unable to employ the off-color humor common in his stand-up routines. Carey initially earned $60,000 per episode in the first seasons, then renegotiated for $300,000. By the final season, he was earning $750,000 per episode. The show had high ratings for its first few seasons, but declining ratings and increasing production costs (around $3 million per episode) precipitated its cancellation. The program had a total of 233 episodes over its nine-year run and Carey was one of four actors to appear in every season.
While still starring in The Drew Carey Show, Carey began hosting the American version of the improvisational comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? in 1998. He would announce the improv cast, direct the games, and usually take part in the final game of the episode by improvising alongside the regular cast of performers. The show ran for a total of 220 episodes until cancellation in 2006 (it returned with host Aisha Tyler in 2013). In 1998, the New York Friars' Club made Carey the newest inductee of the group's Comedy Central Roast. His friend Ryan Stiles (who costarred in The Drew Carey Show and Whose Line Is It Anyway?) served as the roastmaster. Carey's income from Whose Line Is It Anyway? and The Drew Carey Show led to his inclusion on the Forbes list of highest-paid entertainers of 1998, at 24th with $45.5 million. For the WB's 2004–2005 prime time schedule, Carey co-produced and starred in Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, a spin-off of Whose Line Is It Anyway?. It was canceled by the WB, but picked up shortly afterward by Comedy Central. The show's premise relied on the use of a green screen for some of the actors' improv interaction with each other. Animation on the screen was visible to the live audience and it was also inserted during post-production for the television audience. In 2011, Carey began hosting a primetime improv show, called Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza. It was filmed at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, and first aired on April 11. The show took on the premise of Whose Line? and Drew Carey's Green Screen Show in that it features many of the same performers from both shows and did improv based on audience-provided suggestions.
