Jeff Garlin

Comedian, actor, writer, and director Jeff Garlin enjoyed the best of both worlds - Emmy nominations and the universal respect of his peers, as well as a niche level of fame that left him largely unrecognized by passersby. Garlin stayed off the mainstream radar until his co-starring role in Larry David's landmark HBO hit "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (2000- ). A concurrent role on Fox's revered oddity "Arrested Development" (Fox, 2003-06; Netflix, 2013- ) further endeared him to fans of offbeat comedy, though Garlin had cultivated the admiration of his peers since his days at Second City in the 1980s. He was widely considered one of the best improvisers in Hollywood, a necessity for the notoriously scriptless "Curb" production, and hailed as a comic's comic for his story-telling act that was liberal with self-deprecation about his weight and often surprisingly personal with revelations about his inner life. Garlin wrote and directed a feature based on one of his one-man shows, "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With" (2007), which received positive reviews on the festival circuit in 2007. The amiable comic also found popularity in family films, appearing opposite Eddie Murphy in "Daddy Daycare" (2003), voicing the ship's captain in the Disney/Pixar hit "Wall-E" (2008), and co-starring opposite Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler in the action comedy "The Bounty Hunter" (2010), before finally hitting mainstream sitcom success as the put-upon father in the 1980s-set comedy "The Goldbergs" (ABC 2013- ). Regardless of venue, Garlin was an excellent and often underappreciated supporting player more than capable of holding his own.