Gabe Kaplan

Gabriel Weston Kaplan was born on March 31, 1945, in Brooklyn, New York, to a Jewish family. He attended New Utrecht High School but did not graduate. As a young man, Kaplan harbored ambitions of playing Major League Baseball, but after failing to secure a spot on a minor league roster, he shifted direction. Work as a bellman at a hotel in Lakewood, New Jersey, brought him into contact with touring comedians, and he began developing his own stand-up act. By 1964, he was performing at venues such as the Cafe Tel Aviv at 250 West 72nd Street in New York City, building a routine rooted in his Brooklyn upbringing.

Kaplan's stand-up career gained national traction through five appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson between May 1973 and December 1974. During that period he recorded the comedy album Holes and Mellow Rolls, which featured extended routines about his high school years. His act formed part of the foundation for the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter, which he helped Eric Cohen and Alan Sacks create and develop. The series, which ran from 1975 to 1979, starred Kaplan as Gabe Kotter, a teacher who returns to the troubled high school he once attended. A catchphrase from the show, drawn from material on his earlier album, became widely recognized, and a comedy record built around it, Up Your Nose, was released by Elektra Records and reached number 93 on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1977. From 1976 to 1978 and again in 1981, Kaplan competed in the ABC celebrity athletic competition Battle of the Network Stars, serving as team captain for the ABC network in the first five competitions and later captaining the NBC team in 1981 while appearing in the NBC series Lewis and Clark. Following the conclusion of Welcome Back, Kotter, he took a starring role in the 1979 film Fast Break and in 1982 portrayed Groucho Marx in a stage play titled Groucho, a filmed version of which aired on HBO in 1983.

Kaplan's Broadway career includes an appearance in the 1986 production of Doubles. His work in poker began during his acting years, with his first appearance at the World Series of Poker in 1978. By 1980 he had won the main event at Amarillo Slim's Super Bowl of Poker and made the final table of that event two additional times over the following five years. In July 2004 he finished third in a World Poker Tour no-limit Texas hold 'em event, earning more than $250,000, and in 2005 he placed second in the World Series of Poker $5,000 Limit Hold 'Em event, winning $222,515. He served as television commentator for the 1997 and 2002 World Series of Poker events and later became a commentator for High Stakes Poker on the Game Show Network. In 2007 he won on NBC's Poker After Dark in the episode "Queens and Kings," defeating Kristy Gazes heads-up in a $20,000 buy-in, six-person no-limit Texas hold 'em winner-take-all format, and recorded what was described as the greatest comeback in the show's history during a 2010 episode. He won again on Poker After Dark during "Cowboys" week in February 2008, outlasting Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Chau Giang, Hoyt Corkins, and Doyle Brunson. At the 2007 World Series of Poker, he finished ninth in the $50,000 World Championship HORSE event, earning $131,424. As of June 2017, his total live tournament winnings stood at $1,991,248, with eleven WSOP cashes accounting for $539,159 of that total.

In 2007, Kaplan appeared in Zak Penn's improvisational comedy film The Grand, playing Seth Schwartzman, the father of two sibling poker players. That same year he published the book Kotter's Back: from a Faded Celebrity to a Bewildered World. Kaplan returned to host High Stakes Poker when Season 8 aired on PokerGO in 2021, working alongside A.J. Benza. He retired from the role following the first episode of Season 10, which aired on January 24, 2023, with Nick Schulman named as his replacement.