Tom Arnold

Thomas Duane Arnold (born March 6, 1959) is an American actor and comedian.

He is best known for playing Arnie Thomas on Roseanne, which starred his ex-wife Roseanne Barr.

In the early 1980s, Arnold had a prop-based comedy routine called "Tom Arnold and the Goldfish Review."

Roseanne Barr brought him in as a writer for her television sitcom, Roseanne.

He attended Ottumwa High School, Indian Hills Community College, and from 1981 to 1983, the University of Iowa, where he studied business administration and writing.

Soon Lori was a heavy drug user and dealer running one of the largest meth operations in the Midwest until her arrest in 1989.

Arnold escaped his sister's fate, and worked at a meatpacking plant.

He married her in 1990, after she divorced her first husband.

Arnold wrote himself into the show as the character "Arnie Thomas" (a play on his name).

The couple's marriage attracted media and especially tabloid attention due to their sometimes outrageous behavior.

In a late 1990s interview on radio's The Howard Stern Show, Arnold admitted that his share of his and Barr's estate amounted to "over $20,000,000", including a percentage of the Roseanne ABC-TV series, but would not elaborate, citing a confidentiality clause.

In 1992, Arnold starred in his own sitcom, The Jackie Thomas Show.

Airing after Roseanne on ABC, the show lasted 18 episodes.

In 1993, Arnold and Barr bought a house together in Arnold's in the town of Eldon,Iowa and opened a restaurant, 'Roseanne and Tom's Big Food Diner' nearby.

The diner served loosemeat sandwiches similar to the specialty of the fictional Lanford Lunch Box on Roseanne, which in turn was based on the real-life Canteen Lunch in the Alley in Ottumwa.

Both appeared in the 1993 movie The Woman Who Loved Elvis, filmed in Ottumwa.

He has appeared in several films, including True Lies (1994), Nine Months (1995), Big Bully (1996), Carpool (1996), McHale's Navy (1997), Animal Factory (2000), Cradle 2 the Grave (2003), Mr. 3000 (2004), Happy Endings (2005), Pride (2007), The Great Buck Howard (2008), and Madea's Witness Protection (2011).

He was also the host of The Best Damn Sports Show Period for four years, and appeared on Sons of Anarchy.

Arnold was born Thomas Duane Arnold in Ottumwa, Iowa, the son of Linda Kay (née Graham) and Jack Arnold.

His mother was Jewish.

He had 2 siblings: a sister Lori and a brother Scott.

As a child, Arnold was diagnosed with autism.

His mother abandoned the family when he was a child, and he and his siblings were raised by their father: "The three were still very young when their mother, who Tom Arnold said was an alcoholic, moved out. That left them in the care of a father in his early 20s whose role as breadwinner left him little time for parenting, Arnold said."

In their teens, Arnold and his sister moved back in with their mother.

With her mother's consent, Lori was married at age 14 to a man who was 23 years old.

Arnold and Barr divorced in 1994 due to irreconcilable differences.

In 1994, Arnold appeared as the sidekick to Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in James Cameron's action blockbuster film True Lies.

Their restaurant closed in 1995.

After Arnold's divorce from Barr, he narrated and starred in several Craftmatic Adjustable Bed commercials that aired throughout 1995.

The last commercial that he filmed culminated in Arnold lying in a bed that caught on fire and melted a strand of his underarm hair during the taping; the footage was never released.

In November 2000, Arnold played the role of Al Raymond in the second-season Baywatch Hawaii episode, "The Cage".

From 2001 through 2005, he was one of the hosts of The Best Damn Sports Show Period.

From 2003 to 2005, Arnold was the voice of Arby's "Oven Mitt" commercials.

Arnold had his first romantic leading man part in the 2005 movie Happy Endings.

That same year, Arnold starred in The Kid & I.

From 2008 to 2011, he hosted the CMT show My Big Redneck Wedding.

He hosted CMT's The Biggest Redneck Wedding Ever in 2008, in which he served as the wedding planner, created a wedding that exceeded the dreams of a couple who wanted to be married in a mud bog, and performed the actual ceremony.

CMT also made three series of "My Big Redneck Vacation" presented by Arnold and featuring the Clampet Family from Shreveport, Louisiana.

Arnold's role as a child molester in Gardens of the Night sparked revelations that he had been a victim of sexual abuse in his childhood.

Arnold commented on Twitter in 2014: "Me and Mike (Michael Jackson) (he was one of my best friends) used to laugh about how [I] had a Pepsi commercial of my own".