November 29th, 2007 - Happy Birthday Howie Mandel!

He is best known as Ed Flanders’s young intern, Dr. Wayne Fiscus on St. Elsewhere, and is currently the host of the US game show Deal or No Deal, airing on NBC, and the Canadian version, Deal or No Deal Canada, airing on Global.

Howie Mandel was born into a Jewish family and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. After dropping out of high school (Newtonbrook Secondary School), Mandel became a carpet salesman who would later open a carpet sales business of his own.

He became a stand-up comedian at Yuk Yuk’s in Toronto and by September 1978 had a week-long booking as the featured act, billed as “a wild and crazy borderline psychotic.” His repertoire including placing a latex glove over his head and inflating it by blowing through his nose, the fingers of the glove extending above his head like a scomb. When the audience reacted uproariously to that and similar antics, his trademark response was to extend his arms palms up, look incredulous, and ask, “What? What?”

On a trip to Los Angeles, Mandel performed a set at The Comedy Store, which led to him becoming a regular performer there. A producer for the comedic game show Make Me Laugh saw him and booked Mandel for several appearances during the show’s run in 1979. He was booked to open for David Letterman at shows in the summer of 1979. CBC-TV’s head of variety programming saw a Mandel performance in October 1979 and immediately signed him for a TV special. In 1980, he won the lead role in the Canadian movie Gas, co-starring Susan Anspach and Donald Sutherland.

Mandel tours on the road over 200 days a year, and spends much of the rest of his time taping Deal or No Deal. He met his wife Terry in high school, and they were married in 1980. Has three children: Daughters Jackie (b. 1984) and Riley (b. 1992) and son Alex (b. 1989).

Mandel has obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and mysophobia (fear of germs) to the point that he does not shake hands with anyone, including enthusiastic contestants on Deal or No Deal, unless he is wearing latex gloves. Instead of shaking contestants’ hands when they offer them, he will give the contestants congratulatory gestures such as tapping another’s fist with his own fist, or putting his hands on their shoulders.

Mandel now takes medicine to control his condition and even pokes fun at himself for it. He revealed on The Howard Stern Show on March 24, 2006 that his shaved head is not related to natural hair loss, but to his mysophobia. He stated that the lack of hair makes him feel cleaner.

In 2008, Mandel will receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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