Thanks, Wikipedia.
Adam Richard Sandler (born September 9, 1966) is an American comedian, actor, musician, screenwriter and film producer.
After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, he went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over US$100 million at the box office.
Though he is best known for his comedic roles, such as in the films Big Daddy (1999) and Mr. Deeds (2002), he has also had success in romantic and dramatic roles, such as in The Wedding Singer (1998) and Spanglish (2004).
Sandler was born in Brooklyn, New York and is of Israeli-Russian ancestry.
His family moved to Manchester, New Hampshire when he was five.
There, he attended Manchester Central High School.
He found he was a natural comic and nurtured his talent while at New York University by performing regularly in clubs and on campuses.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1991 and was also a member of the Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity.
Later in his career, he would often draw on his earliest memories in his comedy and movies.
In the mid to late 1980s, Sandler played Smitty on The Cosby Show (1987–1988).
He was a performer for the MTV game show Remote Control, on which he made appearances as the characters "Trivia Delinquent" or "Stud Boy".
Sandler started performing in clubs early on, taking the stage at his brother's urging when he was only 17.
He was then discovered by comedian Dennis Miller, who caught Sandler's act in Los Angeles.
Miller immediately recommended him to Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels.
Sandler was hired as a writer for SNL in 1990 and became a featured player the following year, quickly making a name for himself by performing amusing original songs on the show, including The Chanukah Song.
He left the show in 1995 to focus on his acting career.
Sandler's first starring role was in 1989 when he starred in the movie Going Overboard.
In 1995, he starred in Billy Madison, in which he plays a grown, though uneducated man repeating grades 1–12 to earn his father's respect back, along with the right to inherit his father's multi-million-dollar hotel empire.
He followed this movie up with other financially successful comedies such as Bulletproof (1996), Happy Gilmore (1996) and The Wedding Singer (1998).
The Waterboy (1998) was one of his first hit films.
Although most of his earlier films were almost universally despised by movie critics, many of his recent films, starting with Punch-Drunk Love (2002), have received almost uniformly positive reviews.
This has led many movie critics to believe that Sandler possessed considerably more acting ability than they believed and he had been previously wasted on poorly written scripts and characters with no development.
He also played a loving father figure in Big Daddy (1999). During filming, he met Jacqueline Samantha Titone, his future wife and mother of his daughter.
He starred in the movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry (2007), alongside Kevin James as a New York City fireman pretending to be gay to keep up an insurance scam, so his best friend's children can have benefits.
Sandler's most recent film is You Don't Mess With The Zohan (2008), a comedy about a Mossad agent who fakes his own death and moves to the United States to become a hair stylist.
Sandler has made many cameo appearances in films including The Hot Chick, The Animal and The Longest Yard. He has also stood in for David Letterman in The Late Show With David Letterman.
