Phil Hartman
Phil Hartman
Philip Edward "Phil" Hartmanwas a Canadian-American actor, voice actor, comedian, screenwriter and graphic artist. Born in Brantford, Ontario, Hartman and his family moved to the United States in 1958. After graduating from California State University, Northridge, with a degree in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands like Poco and America. Feeling the need for a more creative outlet, Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings in 1975 and there helped comedian Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee Herman...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth24 September 1948
CityBrantford, Canada
CountryCanada
I think there's a notion in our society, and it may be valid, that people aren't as funny when they get older. It's a stigma still attached to the rebelliousness of youth.
Even at Westchester High in West LA, I was class clown.
'Blasto' is a new game for Sony Playstation. It's an awesome three-dimensional game, and I play the character Blasto who's sort of a Flash Gordon barrel-chested superhero who goes to Uranus and shoots these little green alien Fascist guys. He rescues babes; he goes on wild rides.
I think my most famous was 'Poco's Legend.' It's a white album with a simple line drawing of a horse. It almost has a Picasso feel to it. I remember that Rusty Young, the lead singer of the band, said, 'I want you to draw a horse for the song 'Legend,' which is about a phantom spirit horse. I want you to do it in several lines.'
I found the writing arena to be much less competitive.
It's fun coming in as the second or third lead. If the movie or TV show bombs, you aren't to blame.
We were doing tape backups. But with the hurricanes, we started to think about what would happen if we lost the whole building -- and how we were going to get our systems back, not just our data.
Wonderful Canadian family who gave me free Canadian Scotch daily,
What we can do is try to encourage the idea that the East Village is as much a place as a state of mind ... So hopefully the community can be understood by anyone with the right attitude, be they from Hoboken or Tokyo.
I could never learn what I'm learning at college. They don't teach it there, because it can't be learned in that way.
I've succeeded beyond my wildest dreams - financially and the amount of fun I have in my life.
I benefit from the Mr. Potato Head syndrome. Put a wig and a nose and glasses on me, and I disappear.
I could do John Wayne, Jack Benny, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and entertain my friends. But I never seriously considered it as a career choice.
I was 36, and I had decided to quit acting because it was so disappointing.