Born Chelsea Joy Handler on Feb. 25, 1975, in Livingston, NJ, Handler was the youngest of six children. Ironically, she grew up in a conservative family, led by her Jewish father and Mormon mother. While her older siblings grew up to hold down sensible jobs like accounting, Handler grew up to tell self-deprecating stories about her numerous humiliating one-night stands to millions of strangers. She moved to Los Angeles when she was 19 in the hopes of becoming an actress like so many others. When she began auditioning, she realized that the market for pretty blonde actresses was already flooded. She needed another approach.
In a moment of ingenuity, she made a tape of herself in her living room doing a stand-up routine about her struggles as a waitress, and sent it to the Improv on Melrose. They were so impressed; they invited her to perform in the Thursday night slot. Oblivious to what a unique honor it was for a comic – especially a female comic – to appear on that coveted evening’s lineup, she requested an earlier set, citing interference with her bedtime. The club owner looked at her like she was insane. Handler got his point and began performing regularly in comedy clubs around the country well past her bedtime.
In 2002, producers were casting for a new prank comedy series called “Girls Behaving Badly” (Oxygen 2002- ). They spotted Handler’s irreverent stand-up act and asked her to audition. The fearless 5’6 comic was well suited for the outrageous antics performed by the all-female cast. The show was the perfect vehicle to showcase Handler’s strengths – improvisation and a complete willingness to make a fool out of herself. Handler and her cohorts ensnared unwitting people into awkward scenarios until they had squirmed sufficiently before finally being told that they were the butt of the joke. Jay Leno soon joined the growing list of Handler admirers, inviting her to become a recurring correspondent on the “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” (NBC 1992- ). In 2005, Handler decided to put some of her most outrageous sexual exploits on paper, when she show wrote her wildly successful, memoir My Horizontal Life.
Showcasing Handler’s outrageous comedic style, “The Chelsea Handler Show” became one of E!’s most highly rated programs in 2006. The show blended satirical stand-up – including riffs on those one-night stands and being touched inappropriately as a child by someone named Uncle Gary – with taped skits of Handler attending striptease classes clad in a tutu, interviewing senior citizens, or often pairing with her Latino midget assistant and drinking partner who Handler lovingly referred to as “my little nugget.” In typical Handler style, the show allowed the spunky blonde to pose truly cutting edge questions like, “Is it OK to drink while you’re pregnant if you’re planning to give up the baby?”