Actor / Director Profile

Friendly as all get-out, Latino stand-up comic Paul Rodriguez was born in Mexico but raised in East Los Angeles. After finishing his military service, he went to college on the GI bill with the idea of becoming an attorney, but developed an interest in comedy while taking elective courses. He honed his stand-up act at L.A.'s famous The Comedy Store while working as a doorman there, and got his break as an opening act for others at various concerts and universities and as a warm-up comic on Norman Lear's short-lived sitcom "Gloria" (1982) starring Sally Struthers.Lear was so impressed that he wrote and developed a sitcom specifically for Paul entitled "a.k.a. Pablo" (1984), which caught the public's eye only briefly. Other comedy series followed, however, including "Trial and Error" (1988) and "Grand Slam" (1990), and a few movies also came his way with D.C. Cab (1983) and Born in East L.A. (1987). Sticking to his Latino roots as the basis for his comedy, he has made an appealing crossover hit. He broke through the talk show venue with "El Show de Paul Rodriguez", which had a four-year run, and branched out into directing with the film A Million to Juan (1994), which he also co-wrote and starred in. More recently, he appeared with Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles (2001) and had an atypical role in director Clint Eastwood's Blood Work (2002) as an arrogant, smarmy police detective. More recently, he has been visible (good or bad) in A Cinderella Story (2004), The World's Fastest Indian (2005) and Cloud 9 (2006).He also executive-produced and starred in the comedy concert film The Original Latin Kings of Comedy (2002). He has been seen everywhere on cable comedy showcases, including Paul Rodriguez: Behind Bars (1991) (TV), Crossing White Lines (1999), Paul Rodriguez Live!: I Need the Couch (1986) (TV) and "Loco Slam" (1994), all of which have helped him to become one of the best and best known Hispanic comics in the US. These days, Paul is known for his tireless charity work, which includes strong, avid support for the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Farm Aid, Leukemia Telethon, Project Literacy, and Housing Now, among many others.