Louis C.K.

Louis C.K. is the stage name of Louis Szekely (born September 12, 1967), an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor, producer and director. C.K. was born in New York City, to a father descended from Jewish Hungarians and Catholic Mexicans, and a mother with Irish Catholic ancestors. After four years in Mexico, he grew up in Massachusetts, in Framingham and, mostly, Newton. His family pronounces their surname Szekely roughly as "SAY-kay", and in his grade-school years he resorted to "C.K." as an easy way to get his name pronounced almost correctly as "SEE-kay".

C.K. was born in New York City, to a father descended from Jewish Hungarians and Catholic Mexicans, and a mother with Irish Catholic ancestors. After four years in Mexico, he grew up in Massachusetts, in Framingham and, mostly, Newton. His family pronounces their surname Szekely roughly as "SAY-kay", and in his grade-school years he resorted to "C.K." as an easy way to get his name pronounced almost correctly as "SEE-kay".

His credits as a writer include Saturday Night Live, Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Dana Carvey Show and the Chris Rock Show. He wrote and directed the movie, Pootie Tang, based on a sketch from the latter. His work for the Chris Rock Show was nominated for an Emmy Award three times, including winning "Best Writing in a Variety or Comedy Series" in 1999.

As a voice actor he portrayed Brendon's estranged father, Andrew Small, in Home Movies, and appeared numerous times on Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.

He has performed his stand-up frequently on shows like Late Night with Conan O'Brien and the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Most recently his subject matter reflected his frustrations and anxieties from raising his four-year-old daughter. He was ranked #98 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.

In the spring of 2005, C.K. created, with executive producer Mike Royce, a pilot for a sitcom entitled Lucky Louie on HBO. In August, C.K. performed a half-hour HBO special as part of the stand-up series One Night Stand. In September 2005, he began production on twelve episodes, as the rest of the first season of thirteen episodes started airing in June 2006. HBO canceled the series in September 2006, despite rating on par with the network showcase series "The Wire". The show was filmed in front of a live studio audience; it was HBO's first series in that format, and the movie lot being used for taping the first season is the same one where Desi Arnaz made the multi-camera live-audience approach a hallmark of the I Love Lucy show. Lucky Louie is described as a bluntly realistic portrayal of family life; some summarize it as "Everybody Loves Raymond with swearing." Also C.K. vehemently hates laugh tracks and wanted his show to be like a play. (Christopher Titus made a similar but less graphic sitcom based on his life)