THIS EXCELLENT BIOGRAPHY WAS WRITEN BY NORA
Dana Thomas Carvey was born on June 2, 1955 in Missula Montana. He was givin the name Dana because his parents were hoping for a girl instead of a boy, they got a girl one year later and they named her Lori . With the exeption of his younger sister Lori, Dana is the youngest boy in the family, he has three older siblings - Mark, Scott, and Brad. Brad Carvey was the inspiration for Dana's "Garth Algar " character from wayne's world. Brad was known for being shy and kinda dorky but really smart. "I fixed the dryer with a paperclip and a butterknife, it will never break down again " - ( Dana doing an impression of his brother Brad) In 1989, Brad Carvey won an oscar for his work on the animation of " The Brave Little Toaster" which stared some of Dana's close friends including Jon Lovits and Phil Hartman. The Carvey family moved to San Fransisco in 1958, when Dana was three. From a very young age Dana was multitalented musically probably with a little help from his mother ( Billie) who was a musision. His father (Bud) was a high school teacher. At age twelve he recived a drum kit and things went on from there. After graduating from Carlmaont High school in 1973 where he participated in school plays and was a runner on the track team, Dana began to proform stand up comedy in the San Fransisco bay area. He won the San Fransisco stand up compitition in '77 after he graduated from San Fransisco State University with a degree in communications. Some of his inspiration came from the stand up of Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and Carol Brunette. In the late seventy's, early eighty's (im not sure when) Dana moved to Los Angelas to persue his career in the entertainment buisness. In 1981 He got his first movie role when he was cast in " "Halloween II" although it was a tiny role. He played an assistant or "camera man" to a reporter. The back of his head is visable for about 10 seconds . In 1982 Dana was finaly able to quit his job as a busboy when he moved to New York city and landed a role as "Adam Sheilds", Micky Roony's grandson and Nathan Lanes room mate in the NBC sitcome "One of the Boys". The show was taped in front of a live audience in the same building as studio "8-h", which is where "Saturday Night live" was and still is taped. It was during the making of "one ofthe boys" that dana was able to watch the work first-hand of SNL stares Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, Julia Louis Dyfruss, and other cast members. This is also when Dana was first introducd to the SNL producer Lorne Micheals. The sitcome "One of the Boys" did not last very long and it was cancelled after one season. That same year, Dana married Paula Carvey who he is still married to. In 1984, Dana got another role as "Clinton " JAFO" Wonderlove" in the tv series " Blue Thunder" the show was a spin off of the 1984 hit movie "Blue Thunder" but unlike the movie, the series was not a sucsess and it was cancelled after one season. The same year Dana got another small role as "Baby Face" in the movie "Racing with the Moon", a drama with stared Sean Penn, Elizabeth Montgomery, and Nicolas cage. Also, in '84 Dana was cast as a mime waiter along with Billy Crystal (who was also an SNL cast member at the time) in the hilarious comedy and hit Rob Reiner movie "This is Spinal Tap". Two years later in '86, Dana was givin the oppertunity to audition for Saterday Night Live. It came down to a choice between him and Jim Carrey. Dana, of course won the position as a cast member after he blew his audience away with his hilarious wit, and impressions which later caused him to become one of the most memerable and popular SNL cast members of all time. Along with his new found succsess and fame with joining SNL, came more notable movie rolls such as "Richie Evens" in the 1986 comedy "Tough guys" starring Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster. During the early years as an SNL cast member, Dana created many different reacuring charactors such as "Church Lady", "Derik Stevens", Hans from Pumping Up With Hans and Frans with Kevin Nealon, Massive Head Wound Harry, Grumpy Old Man, and Garth Algar from the Wayne's World sketches with Mike Myers. His most impressive reacurring charactors came from his dead-on impressions of famouse people such as Robin Leach, Regis Philbin, Johny Carson, Neil Young, KethRichards, Paul Macartney, Dennis Miller, and George Bush. In 1988, Dana got to show off his talent for immpressions and creating original characters in the low key comedy "Moving " starring Richard Pryer. One year later Dana got to play the "Right Ventrical" in the movie "Cranium Command". The movie was not a huge sucsess but it recieved alot of good reviews. In 1990 Dana recieved his firsted starring role in the movie " Oppertunity Knocks" in which Dana portrayed a con man by the name of " Eddie" but the movie was not a secsess and did not recieve very many good reviews. After the flop of "Oppertunity Knocks ", Dana stuck mainly to stand up when he wasn't busy dedicating himself to Saturday Night Live. Also, in 1990 Dana won an American Comedy Award for being t.v's " Funniest Supporting Male". Dana won the very same award again in 1991. Movie making was temperarely put on hold after the birth of his first son Dex in 1991. After a series of low key movies Dana Carvey and Mike Myers teamed up to bring the SNL skit Wayne's World to the big screen. The movie, "Wayens World" was a huge sucsess for the both of them. The clever slapstick humer and unique style of Wayen's World appealed to an audience of all ages and became the number one movie in America the first day it opened. Wayne's world remained the number one comedy to be realeased in 1992 and brought a reported 160 million $ to the box office. Later that year Dana hosted the " 1992 MTV Music Vidio Awards" where he got to play the drums on stage with the popular band "U2". 1992 was a very busy year for Dana Carvey, he appered on variouse talk shows and made severel special gueast apperenses on other tv shows such as HBO's critticaly aclaimed " the Larry Sanders Show" with comidian / actor Gary Shandling. In 1993 Dana celebrated the huge success of wayne's world 2 and the birth of his second son, Thomas. it was in 1993 that Dana recieved his first Emmy Award for " Outsanding Indivisual Performance in a Varitey or Music Program" Dana has been nominated six times in all for an Emmy. 1993 was also the year Dana left the cast of Saturday Night Live during the '92-'93 season. In 1994 dana got his second starring role as " Maurice L. Puoge " in "clean slate" where dana portrayes a police detective with a memory loss problem. The second movie Dana was in was " The Road to Wellville" where he played the son of George Kelloge (Anthony Hopkins), the third movie he made in 1994 was "Trapped in Parridice" where he played "Alvin Firpo" along side Jon Lovits and Nicolas Cage. All three movies did well in the box offie " Not a smash but not a flop" in Dana Carvey's own words. In 1995 Dana displayed his talent for stand up comedy in the hilarous, one hour HBO special "crittics choice". In 1996, Dana made a cameo in the independant film "the Shot" which starred some of the cast members from "Wayne's World "1 and 2. That was the year that Dana created "The Dana Carvey Show", the show was very succsessfull and featured the writting and acting from a talented staff including SNL writer Robert Smigel, Steven Carrel, and Stephen Colbert who are now corrospondants for "the Daily Show with Jon Stewert". Dispite the succsess of "the Dana Carvey Show" it was cancelled after just one season due to his edgy humor and constant spoofing of his own sponcers. Fans were outraged by "The Dana Carvey Show's" cancellation. In 1997 while living in San Francisco with his family, Dana began suffering from constant chest pains, On September 25th, Dana was admitted to Marin General Hospital where he recieved an angioplasty for a clogged artery but the chest pains continued. 1998 was a tough year for Dana after a second angioplasty, the death of his close friend Phil Harman, and a double bypass surgury after the chest pains and the clogged artery failed to dissapear. After a few year's of unsuccsesfull heart surgery's, it was discovered that Dana's surgeon Dr. Elias Hanna had been opperating on the wrong artery all along. Dana sued Dr. Hanna for 7.5 million $ in 2000 and after a finnal and sucessfull angioplasty, he was able to get his career back on track. Later that year, Dana was cast as a possesed referee for the Harlem Globe Trotters in SNL alumni Adam Sandler's new comedy " Little Nicky ". The movie did pretty well in the box office which is two be expected of Adam Sandler comedy's. In 2002, Dana obtained yet another starring role in the childrens comedy "The Master of Desguise" The film is the first of Dana's the has been written by him and his friend, writer for "Duece Bigalow, Male Jigalo", Harris Goldberg. "The Master of Desguise", a Happy Madison production is set to be released August 2, 2002. Dana's newest film which wont be in theaters untill 2003, is an animated Dreamworks production called "Tusker". This film which is about a herd of elephants features the voice's of some of Hollywoods finest such as Morgan Freeman and Jodi Foster. Dana still livs with his wife Paula and two son's Tom and Dex in San Francisco still preforms his stand up comedy reguraly.
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