John Stamos

John Stamos is an American actor and musician born on August 19, 1963, in Cypress, California, to William "Bill" Stamos, a second-generation Greek-American restaurateur whose family originated from the village of Kakouri in Arcadia, and Loretta, née Phillips. The family's original surname is Stamatopoulos. As a teenager, Stamos worked at his father's restaurants and held a job flipping burgers in Orange County. He attended John F. Kennedy High School, where he played in the marching band. Though he had planned to enroll at Cypress College for the 1981 term, he bypassed his first semester with his father's support to pursue acting, and within three weeks had secured his first role.

Stamos launched his professional career in late January 1982 with the contract role of Blackie Parrish on the ABC daytime soap opera General Hospital. The performance earned him a nomination for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series at the 10th Daytime Emmy Awards in 1983. He subsequently took the lead role of Gino Minnelli in the short-lived CBS sitcom Dreams and later appeared as a series regular alongside Jack Klugman on You Again? in 1986. That same year he starred in the action film Never Too Young to Die, followed by Born to Ride in 1991.

His career gained significant momentum in the late 1980s through the ABC sitcom Full House, on which he played Jesse Katsopolis for eight seasons until the show's finale in 1995. Stamos had requested that his character's surname be changed from Cochran to Katsopolis to reflect his Greek heritage, a change approved by creator and executive producer Jeff Franklin. Following the series, he appeared in numerous television films and series, including starring roles in Thieves in 2001 and Jake in Progress in 2005. In 2003 he guest-starred on Friends in the season nine episode "The One with the Donor," playing a character named Zack. From 2005 to 2009, he held a starring role on the NBC medical drama ER as Dr. Tony Gates, joining as a guest in season twelve before becoming a series regular at the start of season thirteen. In 2008 he appeared in the television adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun and served as roastmaster for the Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget.

Stamos's Broadway career spanned from 1995 to 2012 and included appearances in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Cabaret, and Chance & Chemistry. He starred as Albert Peterson in the Broadway revival of Bye Bye Birdie, which ran from October 2009 to January 2010. In 2012 he played Senator Joseph Cantwell in a Broadway revival of Gore Vidal's The Best Man, replacing Eric McCormack in the role from July to September of that year.

Beginning in September 2015, Stamos led the cast of the Fox sitcom Grandfathered, which also starred Josh Peck, Christina Milian, and Paget Brewster. He executive produced the Netflix series Fuller House, a sequel to Full House that began streaming on February 26, 2016, and in which he reprised the role of Jesse Katsopolis. In 2016 he appeared in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 and joined the second season of Fox's Scream Queens as series regular Dr. Brock Holt. He later starred as Dr. Nicky in the Lifetime and Netflix psychological thriller You. Since 2011, Stamos has also appeared in a series of commercials for Dannon's Oikos Greek yogurt brand, including a Super Bowl commercial aired during Super Bowl 2012. A longtime fan of the Beach Boys, Stamos has toured with the band.