Adam Sandler

Adam Richard Sandler (born September 9, 1966) is an American actor and comedian.

Primarily a comedic leading actor in films, his accolades include nominations for three Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

In 2023, Sandler was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Sandler was born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 9, 1966, to Judith "Judy" (née Levine), a nursery school teacher, and Stanley Sandler, an electrical engineer.

His family is Jewish and descends from Russian Jewish immigrants on both sides.

Sandler grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire, after his family moved there when he was six years old.

He attended Manchester Central High School.

As a teen, Sandler was in BBYO, a Jewish youth group.

In 1987, Sandler played Theo Huxtable's friend Smitty on The Cosby Show and the Stud Boy or Trivia Delinquent on the MTV game show Remote Control.

He graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 1988.

After his film debut in Going Overboard in 1989, Sandler performed in comedy clubs, having first taken the stage at his brother's urging when he was 17.

He was discovered by comedian Dennis Miller, who caught Sandler's act in Los Angeles and recommended him to Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels.

Sandler was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1990 to 1995.

Sandler was hired as a writer for SNL in 1990, and became a featured player the following year.

He made a name for himself by performing amusing original songs on the show, including "The Thanksgiving Song" and "The Chanukah Song".

In 1993, Adam Sandler appeared in the film Coneheads with Farley, David Spade, Dan Aykroyd, Phil Hartman, and Jane Curtin.

In 1994, he co-starred in Airheads with Brendan Fraser and Steve Buscemi.

Sandler's comedic roles include Billy Madison (1995), Happy Gilmore (1996), The Waterboy (1998), The Wedding Singer (1998), Big Daddy (1999), Mr. Deeds (2002), 50 First Dates (2004), The Longest Yard (2005), Click (2006), Grown Ups (2010), Just Go with It (2011), Grown Ups 2 (2013), Blended (2014), Murder Mystery (2019) and Hubie Halloween (2020).

Sandler told Conan O'Brien on The Tonight Show that NBC fired him and Chris Farley from the show in 1995.

Sandler starred in Billy Madison (1995) playing a grown man repeating grades 1–12 to earn back his father's respect and the right to inherit his father's multimillion-dollar hotel empire.

The film was successful at the box office despite negative reviews.

He followed this film with Bulletproof (1996), and the financially successful comedies Happy Gilmore (1996) and The Wedding Singer (1998, his first collaboration with Drew Barrymore).

He was initially cast in the bachelor–party–themed comedy/thriller Very Bad Things (1998) but had to back out due to his involvement in The Waterboy (1998), one of his first big hits.

Sandler continued making successful comedy films including Big Daddy (1999), Mr. Deeds (2002), Anger Management (2003), 50 First Dates (2004, his second collaboration with Drew Barrymore), The Longest Yard (2005), and Click (2006).

He also formed his film production company, Happy Madison Productions, in 1999, first producing fellow SNL alumnus Rob Schneider's film Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.

The company has produced most of Sandler's subsequent films to date, and is on the Sony/Columbia Pictures lot in Culver City, California.

Most of its films have received negative reviews from critics, with three considered among the worst ever made yet most have performed well at the box office.

Sandler was intimidated to work with Anderson upon viewing his previous film Magnolia (2000), but these fears were alleviated upon receiving the script from Anderson.

Roger Ebert's review of Punch-Drunk Love concluded that Sandler had been wasted in earlier films with poorly written scripts and characters with no development.

Ebert noted that Sandler's character still maintained the "childlike, love-starved" persona from his previous films, but was shown in a new light as the "key to all Adam Sandler films."

Sandler was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance.

He also received praise for his dramatic roles in Punch-Drunk Love (2002), The Meyerowitz Stories (2017), Uncut Gems (2019), and Hustle (2022).

Although his earlier commercially successful films did not receive favorable critical attention, Sandler started to receive more positive reviews beginning with his more dramatic role in Punch-Drunk Love in 2002.

Punch-Drunk Love writer and director, Paul Thomas Anderson, had an "obsession-level" love for Sandler's previous movies and wrote the film with him in mind.

Several Sandler comedies, such as Jack and Jill (2011), have been panned, resulting in nine Golden Raspberry Awards and 37 Raspberry Award nominations, more than any actor except Sylvester Stallone.

He also voiced Dracula in the first three films of the Hotel Transylvania franchise (2012–2018).

He returned to Saturday Night Live as a host in 2019 earning a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

He has starred in Hollywood comedy films that cumulatively grossed over $2 billion worldwide.

Sandler used his firing as part of his monologue when he returned in 2019 to host the show.

Sandler had an estimated net worth of $420 million in 2020, and signed a new four-movie deal with Netflix worth over $250 million.