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Famous Like Me > Actor > S > Doug Stanhope

Profile of Doug Stanhope on Famous Like Me

 
Name: Doug Stanhope  
   
Also Know As:
   
Date of Birth: 25th March 1967
   
Place of Birth: Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
   
Profession: Actor
 
 
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Doug Stanhope (born March 25, 1967) is a stand-up comedian.

Stanhope's career began in 1990 in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was the host of Comedy Central's The Man Show for the two final seasons and has appeared on ABC's The View. He has also produced and starred in "Invasion of the Hidden Cameras" (a project for the Fox Broadcasting network). Stanhope has made appearances at several major comedy festivals, including the Montreal Just For Laughs, Aspen US Comedy Arts festival, the Chicago Comedy Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, where he won the Strathmore Press Award in 2002.

Stanhope was the winner of the San Francisco Comedy Competition. He has released several CDs, Sicko, A Little Something to Take the Edge Off, and Die Laughing. His DVD Word of Mouth was released in 2003 and his most recent DVD/CD is Deadbeat Hero, released in 2004.

He claims that his appearance on the BBC television show, "Floor Show Live" , was fueled by "ecstacy".

Stanhope's material is often described as offensive, yet critics also note that Stanhope's continually invoked dedication to personal freedom and libertarian politics set him apart from mere entertainers. He is a self-confident atheist and alcoholic, and his humor can border on nihilism, despite an evident life-celebrating enthusiasm. With his irate opposition to American puritanical hysteria, Stanhope's work frequently invites comparison with the late Bill Hicks. He frankly describes 'deviant' sexual activity and sometimes gruesome personal stories gleefully, blurring the lines between an "adventurous spirit" and full-blown "sicko". Stanhope violently opposes the gradual erosion of American civil liberties, particularly in his recent performances such as 'Deadbeat Hero'.

Often subject to large-scale walk-outs by his American audiences, Stanhope admits "People will leave. I go on stage, it's like I'm leading you into battle -- you're not all going to be here at the end."

Critics of Stanhope say that his on-stage persona conflicts with his side-projects like Girls Gone Wild and The Man Show. These mainstream "jock" products play to the horny everyman, while Stanhope on-stage defines himself not just as the "crazy" drunk, but a full-blown social outsider. Stanhope himself has claimed that the shows attract the wrong audiences for his comic fare. In a show in Houston, Texas Stanhope described one of the Juggies on the Man Show as a transvestite and not caring if she was really a man because he would just "want to poon her in the ass anyway." This was followed by a stereotypical reaction by jocks in the audience.

Others suggest his comedy is base at best, or even self-justifyingly iconoclastic for shock effect -- similar to charges against Bill Hicks and many other comedians and writers, whose work was initially considered less for meaning and value than for superficial "offensiveness."

He is currently working to establish a tour of little-known but talented, socially relevant and edgy comics called The Unbookables featuring artists such as Andy Andrist, Sean Rouse, Brett Erickson, Travis Lipski and Norman Wilkerson with Father Luke serving as the official journalist and documentarian.

In 2005, frontally nude photos of Stanhope at a bachelor party were posted on the gay website hunkvideo.com. They were originally posted on Stanhope's own website.

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Doug Stanhope