George Lopez
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George Lopez (born April 23, 1961, in Mission Hills, Los Angeles, California) is an American comedian, actor, and star of the ABC sitcom, The George Lopez Show.
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Biography
Early life and stand-up
Lopez was born to a Mexican-American family and grew up in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles, California. He never knew who his real father was. He became a popular stand-up comedian, especially among the Latino community for his satirizing of Mexican-American life and culture in the United States. Much of his humor was drawn from the financial poverty of his upbringing and of the Latino community in general. He has released four albums of recorded stand-up comedy shows, including Right Now Right Now and Team Leader, which was nominated for a 2004 Grammy for Best Comedy Album [1]. He appeared in The Latin Kings of Comedy, where he was special guest along with other top Latino stand-up comedians. Alien Nation in 1996 was his first album released of his stand-up comedy shows. His current stand-up comedy show is Why You Crying?.
Television and film career
In 2000, after several years of performing stand-up comedy, Lopez was approached by actress Sandra Bullock for Lopez to produce and star in a comedy. Bullock was concerned about the lack of Latino-oriented sitcoms on American television and pushed to get a sitcom on television that starred Latinos but wasn't exclusively about the Latin American community. ABC, who had been criticized by Latin-American groups for lack of Latinos on their television shows quickly picked up the television series, which began airing in 2002, aired in ABC's TGIF lineup in 2003-2004 before moving to ABC at 8:30 (Eastern Time) on Tuesday nights for the 2004-2005 season. For the 2005-2006 season, the show will air on Wednesday nights at 8:00 PM EST.
In addition, Lopez performed in Real Women Have Curves, which was featured in the 2002 Sundance Film Festival (and later aired to much acclaim on HBO), and The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3-D in 2005. On March 29, 2006, George was awarded with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Three stars down from Executive Producer Sandra Bullock.
Personal life
Lopez suffers from a genetic defect which causes his kidneys to malfunction. In April 2005, he received a transplanted kidney from his Cuban-American wife, Ann; they have been married since 1993 and have a daughter, Mayan, born in 1996.
In a 2005 interview by Howard Stern, Lopez claimed that he and Carlos Mencia were involved in a physical altercation at a comedy club. Lopez alleged that Mencia appropriated 13 minutes of Lopez' material without permission for his HBO comedy special.[2]