Artie Lange / Biography

Artie Lange can be heard daily on the nationally syndicated "The Howard Stern Radio Show" (1998). He joined the cast in 2001, bringing impressions and an average guy prospective to the radio and E network shows. Arthur Steven Lange grew up a child of a middle class family in Union, New Jersey. At Union High School, Lange excelled in baseball, becoming an All County third baseman. Working long afternoons with his loving contractor father, Artie developed a comical view of social classes, and his place in life as a barrel chested Italian boy. After Artie completed high school, his father fell off a roof and became a quadriplegic. Artie changed his college plans to be near his family, taking up odd jobs as a clerk, labourer and cab driver. After his fathers' death four years later, Artie gave up his Port of Newark longshoreman's' job to play his first gig at New York's Improv in Hell's Kitchen. Gaining steadying success Artie pursued sketch comedy, helping to create the popular improvisation group, "Live On Tape". Doing improvisation landed Artie his major break. He was cast as an original member of Fox's "Mad TV" (1995) in 1995. Hollywood success would bring down the comic with substance abuse and a possession for cocaine arrest. Mad TV fired him in 1997. After rehab, depression and a 40-pound weight gain, Lange found himself out of work until "Saturday Night Live" (1975) comedian Norm MacDonald remembered him. Lange played MacDonald's sidekick in both Dirty Work (1998) and ABC's "The Norm Show" (1999). As a guest during a promotional tour with MacDonald, Howard Stern first heard and liked Lange. Years before, Artie and his father listened daily to the Howard Stern Show.