Steve Guttenberg

Steven Robert Guttenberg was born on August 24, 1958, in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens. He is the son of Ann Iris Guttenberg, a surgical assistant, and Jerome Stanley Guttenberg, an electrical engineer who served in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division as an Army Ranger. Guttenberg has two sisters and was his parents' only son. His godfather is actor Michael Bell. After his family relocated from Queens to North Massapequa, he graduated from Plainedge High School in 1976. While still in high school, he attended a summer program at the Juilliard School, studying under John Houseman, and auditioned for and won a role in an off-Broadway production of The Lion in Winter. He subsequently enrolled at the University at Albany, SUNY for one year before moving to California to pursue acting. His parents provided him $300 and a two-week deadline to find work; within that period he was cast in a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial appearing opposite Colonel Sanders.

Guttenberg's screen career began with an uncredited role in the suspense film Rollercoaster, followed by his first credited appearance in the 1977 television movie Something for Joey. That same year he took the starring role in the high school comedy The Chicken Chronicles and appeared in a supporting capacity in The Boys from Brazil, based on the Ira Levin novel. He starred in the short-lived CBS sitcom Billy in 1979, which was based on Billy Liar, and also appeared in the tennis romance Players that year. His early television work continued with the 1980 TV movie To Race the Wind, in which he played blind lawyer Harold Krents, and Can't Stop the Music, directed by Nancy Walker, a semi-autobiographical film about the Village People. In 1981 he portrayed Jim Craig in the TV movie Miracle on Ice, and the following year he appeared in Barry Levinson's Diner and starred in the short-lived series No Soap, Radio.

The 1984 film Police Academy marked a turning point in Guttenberg's career. He played the lead role of Carey Mahoney in a film that grossed $8.5 million in its opening weekend and over $149 million worldwide against a budget of $4.5 million, making it the most financially successful entry in the franchise it launched. Over the following four years he appeared in nine starring roles, a pace that tied him with Gene Hackman as the busiest actor of that period. He reprised the Mahoney role in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment and Police Academy 3: Back in Training in 1985 and 1986 respectively, and made his final appearance in the franchise with Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol in 1987. Alongside the Police Academy sequels, he starred in the box-office success Cocoon in 1985 and Short Circuit opposite Ally Sheedy in 1986. In 1987 he shifted to thriller territory with The Bedroom Window, directed by Curtis Hanson, and achieved the biggest financial success of his career to that point with Three Men and a Baby, alongside Tom Selleck and Ted Danson. He reprised his role in the 1990 sequel Three Men and a Little Lady. Additional film credits from this era include High Spirits with Peter O'Toole and Daryl Hannah, Cocoon: The Return, and a cameo in Amazon Women on the Moon. In 1989 he appeared in Michael Jackson's music video Liberian Girl.

Guttenberg's Broadway career spans from 1990 to 2011. In 1990 he replaced Timothy Hutton in the lead role of Prelude to a Kiss at the Helen Hayes Theatre. He returned to Broadway in late 2011, appearing in Woody Allen's one-act play Honeymoon Hotel, which formed part of the production Relatively Speaking, with the run extending into early 2012. He also appeared in George is Dead during his Broadway tenure. Beyond Broadway, his stage work included a West End engagement in The Boys Next Door in London and participation in the world stage premiere of Furthest From the Sun, which Woody Harrelson directed and co-authored.

His later film work includes The Big Green in 1995, Zeus and Roxanne and Casper: A Spirited Beginning in 1997, and Disney's Tower of Terror alongside Kirsten Dunst. In 2002 he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, an adaptation of a novel and Broadway play by James Kirkwood, Jr. He also appeared in A Novel Romance in 2011. On television, he held a recurring role as Woody Goodman in the teen mystery series Veronica Mars during the 2005–2006 season, played Richard Clarke in the NBC television remake of The Poseidon Adventure in 2005, and guest-starred in a 2007 episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. He was a contestant on season 6 of Dancing with the Stars in 2008, partnered with professional dancer Anna Trebunskaya, and was eliminated on April 1 of that year. He later took on recurring roles as Wayne Hastings, Jr. in the HBO series Ballers in 2017 and as Dr. Katman in the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs, a role he held from 2017 to 2023. In 2015 he appeared in the History Channel miniseries Sons of Liberty as Jack Bonner.