Norm Macdonald Biography, Age, Family, Education, Career, Net Worth, Marriage

Who is Norm Macdonald?

Norman Gene Macdonald was a Canadian stand-up comedian, author, and actor recognized for his deadpan style. Initially in his career, he wrote for the sitcom Roseanne before becoming a cast member on Saturday Night Live (SNL) for 5 years. He additionally anchored the Weekend Update section for 3 seasons, during this time he was also a guest appearance on shows such as The Drew Carey Show and NewsRadio.

Later he left SNL and starred in the 1998 movie Dirty Work and in his very own sitcom, The Norm Show, from 1999 to 2001. Macdonald’s preliminary appearances in comedy were at stand-up clubs in Ottawa, regularly appearing on amateur nights at Yuk Yuk’s in 1985. He was ranked as one of the country’s hottest comics by Montreal Gazette after he appeared at the 1986 Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. He additionally would perform as a contestant on Star Search by 1990. Later he got employed as a writer for the Roseanne Television sitcom for 1992-93 before quitting to join Saturday Night Live.

How old was Norm Macdonald?

Macdonald was born in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada on October 17, 1959, as Norman Gene Macdonald. He died from acute leukemia on September 14, 2021, in Pasadena, California, U.S. aged 61. He shares his birthday with many famous people which include Alan Jackson, Chris Lowell, Eminem, Ernie Els, Felicity Jones, Fred LeBlanc among others.

Norm Macdonald Family

Who are Norm Macdonald’s parents?

Macdonald was born on October 17, 1959, to Ferne (née Mains) and Lloyd Macdonald. Both his parents had been teachers, who worked at CFB Valcartier, a military base north of Quebec City. His father died in 1990 of heart disease. Macdonald was born and raised in Quebec City.

Does Norm Macdonald have siblings?

Macdonald was born as the second born in a family of 3 children. He has two siblings, an older brother, Neil Macdonald, and a younger brother Leslie Macdonald. Neil is a journalist with CBC News and is married to Joyce Napier, a journalist with CTV News.

Norm Macdonald Education

Macdonald attended and studied at Quebec High School, later moving to Gloucester High School in Ottawa. After high school, he joined and graduated from Carleton University.

Norm Macdonald Interests

Macdonald had a big hobby in gambling which later turned into an addiction. He was a poker player who competed in tournaments, gambling live cash games, and online poker. He stopped it after they went offline after losing a lot of cash gambling.

Macdonald was additionally a big fan of comedians Bob Newhart, Leo Tolstoy, Bob Hope, Sam Kinison, and Dennis Miller and they became his influences.

Norm Macdonald Spouse

Macdonald married his spouse Connie Vaillancourt, in 1988. They later separated in April 1999 having one son together. Macdonald’s current marital status is divorced.

Norm Macdonald Kids

The couple had one child, a son, Dylan Macdonald who was born on October 28, 1992, in Los Angeles.

Norm Macdonald Career

1993-1998 SNL

Norman joined the cast of NBC’S Saturday Night Live (SNL) television program in 1993. He did impressions of Larry King, Burt Reynolds, David Letterman, Quentin Tarantino, Charles Kuralt, and Bob Dole, and plenty of more. Macdonald anchored the segment Weekend Update the subsequent year during the show’s 20th season. Current Weekend Update anchor and author Colin Jost named Macdonald as a primary effect on his personal work behind the Update desk.

Norman’s version of Weekend Update mostly included references to prison rape, crack whores, and the Germans’ love of Baywatch’s famous person David Hasselhoff. Occasionally, Norman would deliver a piece of news, then take out his personal compact tape recorder and leave a ”note to self” relevant to what he simply discussed. He mostly used Frank Stallone as a non-sequitur punchline. Norman continuously ridiculed public figures including Bob Dole, Marion Barry, Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, and O. J. Simpson.

Macdonald ridicules

During Simpson’s murder trial, Macdonald continuously pilloried the retired American football star with the basis Simpson was guilty of the brutal slaying of his ex-wife and her friend. After Simpson’s acquittal on the 3rd, he opened the Weekend Update stating, ”Well, it is finally official; murder is legal within the state of California” on October 7, 1995, on the primary SNL episode.

Also after Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley have been announced on planning to divorce, he joked about their irreconcilable variations on Weekend Update. Macdonald followed this up a few episodes later with a record about the singer’s collapse and hospitalization. ”According to friends, Jackson and Lisa were never a good fit due to the fact she was more of a stay-at-home type while he was more of a homosexual pedophile”.

Leaving SNL

Early in 1998, Don Ohlmeyer, president of NBC’s West Coast division, had Norman removed as a Weekend Update anchor. He cited a decline in rankings and a drop-off in quality. Macdonald was replaced by Colin Quinn on the Weekend Update desk beginning at January 10, 1998, episode. Macdonald and others believed the true cause for his dismissal was his collection of O. J. Simpson jokes in the course of and after the trial, regularly calling him a murderer. Don, was a dear friend of Simpson and even supported him in the course of the proceedings.

Macdonald moved directly to CBS’s Late Show with David Latterman and Howard Stern‘s syndicated radio show. He accused Ohlmeyer of firing him for making jokes about Simpson in both appearances. Macdonald was fired together with longtime SNL author Jim Downey whom they wrote the jokes with. Downey said in an interview that Ohlmeyer threw a celebration for the jurors who acquitted Simpson.

Don Ohlmeyer claimed that Macdonald was mistaken, saying that he had not censored Jay Leno’s many jokes about Simpson on The Tonight Show. He said that he was simply concerned that rankings research showed people turning far far away from the program in the course of Macdonald’s section. Macdonald remained on SNL as a cast member, however, he disliked acting in regular sketches.

Return to SNL

In one of his last appearances on SNL on February 28, 1998, he performed the host of a fictitious TV show referred to as Who’s More Grizzled? He asked questions from ”mountain men”, performed by that night’s host Garth Brooks and special guest Robert Duvall. Ohlmayer later prevented NBC from airing advertisements from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for Macdonald’s new movie, Dirty Work. This was out of retaliation for what he noticed as disparaging SNL and NBC with Letterman and Stern. Ohlmeyer’s boss, Robert Wright, later changed the decision not to show advertisements for the film on NBC but did leave in place the ban on playing it in the course of SNL.

Norman additionally said that Ohlmeyer’s effect had brought about his promotional appearances for his movie to be canceled on WNBC’s Today in New York, NBC’s Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Years later, he concluded that Ohlmeyer had not removed him from Update for his Simpson material but due to the fact he was seen as insubordinate. On October 23, 1999, Macdonald returned to host the Saturday Night Live show. He expressed resentment at being fired from Weekend Update concluding that the cause he was hired back was due to the fact the show had gotten genuinely awful since he left.

1999

After leaving SNL, he co-wrote and starred in the ”revenge comedy” Dirty Work (1998). It was directed by Bob Saget, co-starring Artie Lange, and presenting Chris Farley in his last movie; the movie was devoted to his memory. Macdonald voiced the character of Lucky the Dog within the Eddie Murphy adaptation of Dr. Dolittle. The role recurred in both Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001) and Dr. Dollitle 3 (2006). Macdonald starred in the sitcom The Norm Show later the Norm), starring Laurie Metcalf, Artie Lange, and Ian Gomez. The show ran for 3 seasons on ABC in 1999.

In early 1999, Macdonald made a cameo appearance within the Andy Kaufman biographical drama Man on the Moon, directed by Milos Forman. Michael Richards refused to portray himself in the scene reenacting the well-known Fridays incident wherein Kaufman threw water in his face. Norman stepped in to play Richards, however, he was not referred to by name. He additionally appeared in Forman’s preceding movie, The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), as a reporter summoned to Flynt’s mansion regarding mystery tapes regarding automaker John DeLorean.

2000-2005

Macdonald performed the starring role for the second time in a motion picture together with Dave Chapelle, Screwes, which fared poorly on the box office. He went on to appear on television shows and movies. In 2020 he made his first appearance on Family Guy as the voice of Death however the role was later recast to Adam Carolla. He appeared at the Celebrity Edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on November 12, 2000, winning $500,000 for Paul Newman’s Hole within the Wall Charity Camp.

Macdonald portrayed the title character within the Fox sitcom A Minute with Stan Hooper in 2003, which was canceled after six episodes. He later signed a deal in 2005 with Comedy Central to create the sketch comedy Back to Norm, debuting in May. The pilot, whose cold starting parodied the suicide of Budd Dwyer, starred Rob Schneider and never became a series. He voiced a genie named Norm on episodes of the cartoon collection The Fairly OddParents later in 2005. However, he couldn’t go back for the third episode, ”Fairly Idol”, because of a scheduling conflict.

2006-2007

Macdonald performed as a voice actor in 2006, in a sequence of commercials for the Canadian mobile-services provider Bell Mobility. He was the voice of Frank the Beaver. The marketing campaign extended through 2008 to promote offerings from Bel Canada divisions. His sketch comedy album Ridiculous was launched by Comedy Central Records in September 2006. Will Ferrell, Jon Lovitz, Tim Meadows, Molly Shannon, and Artie Lange made appearances.

Macdonald created an animated collection entitled The Fake News at the comedy website Super Deluxe. He filled in during Dennis Miller’s weekly ”Miller Time” section on O’Reilly Factor, and guest-hosted Miller’s radio show, on which he was briefly a weekly contributor. Norman was a guest character on My Name Is Earl within the episode ”Two Balls, Two Strikes” (2007). He is regarded as Lil Chubby, the son of ”Chubby” (performed by Burt Reynolds), equal to Macdonald’s portrayals of Reynolds on SNL.

2008-2009

Macdonald was a superstar panelist on episodes of a revived version of the game show Match Game on June 19, 2008. He was additionally a participant within the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget, playing intentionally cheesy and G-rated material which contrasted significantly with the raunchy performances of the other roasters on August 17, 2008. Macdonald voiced a gingerbread boy in a commercial for AT&T’s GoPhone is AT&T commercials around Christmas 2007 and 2008.

Macdonald and Sam Simon pitched a fake reality show to FX known as The Norm Macdonald Reality Show in 2009. He performed a fictional, down-on-his-luck version of himself. The show was picked up and Garry Shandling was added to the cast, however, it was canceled midway through filming. Macdonald later reappeared as Burt Reynolds on Celebrity Jeopardy!, and in another sketch at the May 16, 2009, episode of Saturday Night Live. He additionally appeared on Million Dollar Password on May 31, 2009.

2010-2012

Norman became a frequent guest on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien in its 2009 and 2010 run. Macdonald made frequent appearances at the internet talk show Tom Green’s House Tonight and was a guest host on May 20, 2010. He was developing a sequence for Comedy Central describing it as a sports version of The Daily Show, in September 2010. Sports Show with Norm Macdonald premiered on April 12, 2011, and 9 ordered episodes were broadcast. His first stand-up special, Me Doing Stand-up, aired on Comedy Central on March 26, 2011.

He became a commentator and co-host of the 7th season of the TV series High Stakes Poker on Game Show Network on February 26, 2011. It was mentioned in early 2012 that Macdonald was developing a talk show for TBS titled Norm Macdonald is Trending. It would see Macdonald and a crew of correspondents covering headlines from pop culture and social media. Clips for the unaired pilot posted by The Washington Post resemble a sketch comedy show in the vein of Back to Norm.

He became the spokesperson for Safe Auto Insurance Company in June 2012. Together with tv and radio commercials, web banners, and outside boards, the effort consisted of a series of made-for-web videos. The nation’s minimum auto insurance introduced a new tagline, ”Drive Safe, Spend Less.”

2013

Macdonald premiered his new podcast, called Norm Macdonald Live in 2013. It was co-hosted by Adam Eget, streaming live weekly on Video Podcast Network, and published later on Youtube. The podcast received positive notices from USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, and the ”America’s Comedy” website. The Independent Film Channel stated that while Macdonald remained ”a comedy force to be reckoned with”, and ”did not pretty disappoint,” the show was ”a bit rough around the edges.” The 2nd season of Norm Macdonald Live began out in May 2014 and the third in September 2016.

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2014-2020

Macdonald campaigned on Twitter to be named the brand new host of The Late Late Show unsuccessfully after then-host Craig Ferguson mentioned he would be leaving in 2014. He was the final stand-up act on the Late Show with David Letterman on May 15, 2015. Macdonald was a choice for the 9th season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing in 2015, joining the previous season’s judges, Roseanne Barr and Keenan Ivory Wayans, and replacing fellow Canadian Russell Peters from 2014. He succeeded Darrell Hammond as Colonel Sanders in TV commercials for the KFC chain of fast-food restaurants in August 2015. He was later replaced by Jim Gaffigan in the role by February 2016.

Macdonald’s semi-fictional Memoir Based on a True Story was published by Random House imprint Spiegel & Grau in September 2016. It debuted at number 15 at the New York Times Best Sellers list for hardcover nonfiction and made number 6 at the Best Sellers list for humor. He started out to move his comedy to a greater reserved, deadpan style beginning in May 2017. Macdonald claimed to have ”no opinions” on the level and the minimalist delivery has been defined by The A.V. Club as ”reduc[ing] gesture and verbiage down to an absurd minimum.

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Netflix announced it had ordered ten episodes of a brand new talk show Norm Macdonald Has a Show in March 2018. He sparked controversy after the publication of an interview in September 2018. He appeared to criticize aspects of the #MeToo movement and defend friends and fellow comedians Louis C.K. and Roseanne Barr. His scheduled appearance on NBC’s Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon was subsequently canceled. Macdonald then released Loko, a dating app he co-created that is based heavily on video to make first impressions, in February 2020.