Michael McKean - Biography

Lanky comic actor, writer and musician whose frequently goofy characters can manage to be just the slightest bit cool, and whose occasional cool, mature characters always seem just a bit goofy. McKean discovered performing in high school, and in college met future collaborators David L. Lander (at Carnegie-Mellon U.) and Christopher Guest (at NYU). The threesome, along with Harry Shearer and Richard Bebe, formed The Credibility Gap, a comedy group which performed on the radio and on tour for five years beginning in 1970. In 1975 McKean, Lander and Shearer, were signed to write for the then upcoming ABC sitcom, "Laverne and Shirley" (1976-83). Series star Penny Marshall suggested that McKean and Lander play recurring roles based on Lenny and Ant'ny, two odd but street-smart characters they had created with The Credibility Gap. Soon, "Lenny and Squiggy" helped the series to become a ratings smash.

Each week, neighbors Lenny and Squiggy would burst into the titular heroines' apartment at the worst possible moment. In a show set in a faux early rock'n'roll era, McKean and Lander's characters dressed like would-be cool greasers, but their incredible stupidity broadly sent up an entire era as well as the show's own anachronisms. After the series' lengthy run, McKean tried to parlay his fame into feature leads, but "Young Doctors in Love" (1982), helmed by "Laverne"'s Garry Marshall, didn't quite hit its mark. McKean did better on "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984), an uproariously inventive and on-target "rockumentary" satire of heavy metal music. McKean co-starred as a vain hen-pecked lead singer, and collaborated with Shearer, Guest and director Rob Reiner on writing.

McKean had prominent roles in several other features ("D.A.R.Y.L." and "Clue", both 1985), but their poor showing, critically and with the public, subsequently consigned him to supporting roles in "Earth Girls Are Easy" (1989), "Book of Love" (1990), "Coneheads" (1993) and "Airheads" (1994), films which played on his flair for zany farce or rock'n'roll. These films have almost universally misfired, leaving McKean's most interesting later feature credit a reunion with Guest in "The Big Picture" (1989), a sharp satire on Hollywood which McKean also co-wrote. On TV, McKean has fared best on such offbeat shows as "Grand" (CBS, 1990), and HBO's "Dream On" (1990-96) and "Sessions" (1991). He has also successfully ventured into TV direction and production. At the end of the 93-94 season McKean joined "SNL", taking over for former elder statesman Phil Hartman. McKean's efforts were largely wasted in this floundering era of the venerable series. Nevertheless, he continued to rack up an impressive and typically effective series of big-screen appearences, and a wry verve to projects including "The Brady Bunch Movie" (1995), "Small Soldiers" (1998), "Teaching Mrs. Tingle" (1999), "Mystery, Alaska" (1999) and "Little Nicky" (2000).

But McKean continued to shine most brightly in his collaborations with Shearer and Guest; he appeared as one have of a gay couple obsessed with their dogs in Guest's uproarious kennel club comedy "Best In Show" (2000) and essayed an uptight corporate exec for the Shearer-helmed satire "Teddy Bears' Picnic" (2002), and the trio re-teamed for the "Spinal Tap"-esque folk music parody "A Mighty Wind" in 2003. McKean also began appearing in fare with a slightly more serious edge, including Christine Lahti directorial debut "My First Mister" (2001), the fiftysomething romantic comedy "Never Again" (2002) and in Paul Schrader's dark biopic of "Hogan's Heroes" star Bob Crane, "Auto Focus" (2002). In between more serious efforts, he kept his TV comedic chops sharpened by hosting Comedy Central's series of "Uncomfortably Close with Michael McKean" specials (1999-2001), in which he interviewed some of the premiere comedic talents of the day, playing the insipid talk show sidekick Adrien Van Voorhees on Martin Short's hilarious TV series "Primetime Glick" (2000-2002), and by guesting as the oily Morris Fletcher on several episodes of "The X-Files" and its short-lived spin-off "The Lone Gunemen." In 2003 McKean was back in wacky form on the big-screen, appearing the Bollywood-to-Hollywood satire "The Guru."