Michael McKean

Michael John McKean, born October 17, 1947, in New York City, is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, composer, and musician with a career spanning television, film, stage, and music. He was born at Manhattan Women's Hospital and raised in Sea Cliff, New York, on Long Island. His father, Gilbert S. McKean, was one of the founders of Decca Records, and his mother, Ruth Stewart McKean, worked as a librarian. McKean is of Irish, English, Scottish, German, and Dutch descent. He graduated from North Shore High School in 1965 and later attended Carnegie Mellon University, where he developed the characters of Lenny and Squiggy alongside fellow student David Lander. In early 1967, he briefly played with the New York City baroque pop band the Left Banke, appearing on the single "Ivy, Ivy."

After Carnegie Mellon, McKean and Lander joined the Los Angeles comedy group The Credibility Gap alongside Harry Shearer. McKean's breakthrough came in 1976 when he and Lander joined the ABC sitcom Laverne and Shirley, where McKean portrayed Lenny Kosnowski through 1983. The characters of Lenny and Squiggy became a cultural phenomenon, and in 1979 McKean and Lander released an album as Lenny and the Squigtones, which featured a young Christopher Guest on guitar. McKean also directed one episode of the series and reprised his character in an episode of Happy Days.

Following his departure from Laverne and Shirley in 1982, McKean appeared in the film Young Doctors in Love before co-starring as David St. Hubbins in the 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap alongside Guest and Shearer. That collaboration with Guest continued across Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003), and For Your Consideration (2006). For A Mighty Wind, McKean co-wrote the title song with Guest and Eugene Levy, earning a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. He and his wife, Annette O'Toole, also co-wrote "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" from the same film, which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.

McKean built a substantial film career through the 1980s and 1990s, with roles in Used Cars (1980), Clue (1985), D.A.R.Y.L. (1985), Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), Earth Girls Are Easy (1988), Short Circuit 2 (1988), and The Big Picture (1989), the last of which he also co-wrote. He appeared opposite Kiefer Sutherland and Dennis Hopper in Flashback (1990) and later in Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), Coneheads (1993), Airheads (1994), and Radioland Murders (1994). He played the villainous Mr. Dittmeyer in The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) and reunited with Guest for Little Nicky (2000) and A Mighty Wind (2003).

On television, McKean joined the cast of Saturday Night Live for its 19th and 20th seasons from 1994 to 1995, becoming at age 46 the oldest person to join the SNL cast at that time, a distinction later surpassed by Leslie Jones in 2014. He had previously appeared on the show as both a musical guest and a guest host before becoming a cast member. He played Gibby Fiske in the HBO series Dream On from 1990 to 1996 and had a recurring role on Tracey Takes On, which he also directed. In 1998, he guest-starred in the two-part X-Files episode "Dreamland," playing Morris Fletcher, a character who returned in the 1999 episode "Three of a Kind," the 2001 spin-off series, and the X-Files episode "Jump the Shark." He also had a regular role as bandleader Adrian Van Voorhees on Martin Short's series Primetime Glick and guest appearances on The Simpsons, Star Trek: Voyager, Boy Meets World, Friends, Law and Order, and Family Guy, among others. In 2003, he guest-starred on Smallville as Perry White, the character he had also portrayed in a Saturday Night Live Superman spoof during his time as a cast member. Since 2015, McKean portrayed Chuck McGill on the AMC drama Better Call Saul through 2018 and again in 2022, earning a Primetime Emmy Award nomination in 2019 for that role. Since 2020, he has voiced Lou Pickles in Nickelodeon's Rugrats franchise, and he has appeared in series including Curb Your Enthusiasm, Veep, Grace and Frankie, Breeders, and The Diplomat.

McKean made his Broadway debut in 1990, for which he received a Theatre World Award. His stage work spans productions including Hair, The Homecoming, All the Way Home, and Glengarry Glen Ross. He starred in the musical Hairspray in 2004, playing Edna Turnblad. He appeared in the Tracy Letts play Superior Donuts in 2009 and earned a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance in 2008. In the 2012 revival of Gore Vidal's The Best Man, McKean took a starring role, and he starred in the 2017 revival of Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. In 2014, he portrayed both J. Edgar Hoover and Robert Byrd in the political play All the Way. His Broadway activity continued through 2025, encompassing a range of productions across more than three decades on the New York stage.

Beyond his performing career, McKean is recognized as the twenty-second highest-earning game show contestant of all time, having accumulated $1,115,400 through his appearances on Celebrity Jeopardy.