Fred Willard
Frederic "Fred" Willard (born September 18, 1939) is an American actor, comedian, voice actor, and writer, best known for his improvisational comedy skills. He is known for his roles in the Christopher Guest mockumentary films This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration. He is an alumnus of The Second City. He received three Emmy nominations for his recurring role on the TV series Everybody Loves Raymond as Robert Barone's father-in-law, Hank MacDougall. In 2010, he received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his role on the ABC TV series Modern Family as Phil Dunphy's father, Frank Dunphy.
He also received a Daytime Emmy Nomination for Outstanding Talk Show Host for What’s Hot, What’s Not. One of his earliest jobs was at The Second City, Chicago, where he shared the stage with Robert Klein, and David Steinberg. He was a founding member of the improvisational comedy group Ace Trucking Company. Fellow members of Ace included Michael Mislove and Bill Saluga. They performed sketches on The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson over fifty times and appeared regularly on This is Tom Jones.
Read more about Fred Willard: Early Life, Career, 2012 Arrest, Charity Work
Famous quotes containing the word willard:
“Our age is pre-eminently the age of sympathy, as the eighteenth century was the age of reason. Our ideal men and women are they, whose sympathies have had the widest culture, whose aims do not end with self, whose philanthropy, though centrifugal, reaches around the globe.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)