Judd Apatow - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Judd Apatow was born in Flushing, New York to a Jewish family, and raised in Syosset, New York. His father, Maury Apatow, was a real estate developer, and his mother, Tami (Shad), worked primarily managing record labels founded by her father, music producer Bob Shad. Apatow’s mother spent a summer working at a comedy club, which is where Judd was first exposed to live standup comedy.

Apatow has an older brother, Robert, and a younger sister, Mia. When Apatow was twelve years old, his parents divorced. Robert went to live with his maternal grandparents, and Mia went to live with her mother. As a child, Apatow lived mainly with his father, and visited his mother on weekends.

Apatow was obsessed with comedy as a child; his childhood heroes were Steve Martin, Bill Cosby and the Marx Brothers. Apatow got his comic start washing dishes at the Long Island East Side Comedy Club, and while attending Syosset High School, he hosted a program called COMEDY CLUB on the school's 10-watt radio station WKWZ which he created as a way to meet and learn from the comedians he looked up to. He cold-called comedians he admired during this time, managing to interview Steve Allen, Howard Stern, Harold Ramis and John Candy, along with emerging comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Wright and Garry Shandling.