Howie Mandel
Howard Michael Mandel (born November 29, 1955) is a Canadian comedian, actor and television host. He hosts the NBC game show "Deal or No Deal", as well as the show's daytime and Canadian-English counterparts. In 1987, Mandel starred alongside Amy Steel in the comedy film "Walk Like a Man". From 1982 to 1988 Mandel played rowdy ER intern Dr. Wayne Fiscus on the NBC medical drama "St. Elsewhere". He also created and starred in the children's cartoon "Bobby's World", and judges on NBC's "America's Got Talent".
Howie Mandel
Mandel was born and lived in the Willowdale area of Toronto, Ontario. He is Jewish, and his ancestors emigrated from Romania and Poland. Mandel is also a distant cousin to violinist Itzhak Perlman. His father was a lighting manufacturer and a real estate agent. Mandel was expelled from his high school (William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate Institute) for impersonating a school official and hiring a construction company to build an addition to his school. Afterwards, Mandel worked as a carpet salesman. He was a stand-up comedian at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto and by September 1978 had a week-long booking as featured act, billed as "a wild and crazy borderline psychotic". His repertoire included 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 cockscomb. When the audience reacted uproariously to that and similar antics, his trademark response was to extend his arms palms up, look incredulous, and say, "it's you." His manager during the Yuk Yuk years was Canadian David Holiff who Mandel later fired.