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Bruce Vilanch
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bruce Vilanch (born November 23, 1948) is an American comedy writer who caught the public eye when he became a wisecracking regular on the revamped Hollywood Squares with Whoopi Goldberg.
Vilanch attended Ohio State University as a theater and journalism student and graduated with a BFA in theatre in 1970. His first television appearance was in 1988 on Hollywood Today, where he was interviewed by Chris Aable. The show aired in 43 cities on Century Cable and the Manhattan Neighborhood Cable Network.
Vilanch is an obese man with long blonde hair, a big, bushy beard, and glasses. He is openly gay. He has a penchant for wearing wacky T-shirts and purports to have the largest collection in the world.
Vilanch has provided topical joke material for a number of awards show hosts, notably Billy Crystal at the Academy Awards. He commands high fees for emergency Hollywood script rewrites.
Vilanch has a musical comedy background (he co-wrote the book for the flop Platinum and contributed to far more successful concert shows starring Bette Midler, Diana Ross, and Michael Feinstein) and claims to have done every Stubby Kaye role ever written. In 2005 he starred on Broadway as Edna Turnblad in the musical Hairspray. He was on the third edition of Celebrity Fit Club and lost 21 pounds over the course of the show, 6.7% of his body weight; and while Vilanch lost one of the five lowest percentages in the history of the show, after gaining 2 pounds back for the finale, he has continued his weight loss beyond the show. Vilanch is often mistaken for film gadfly and blogger Harry Knowles.[citation needed]
Categories: Articles lacking sources from February 2007 | All articles lacking sources | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | 1948 births | Academy Awards | Living people | American comedy writers | Gay writers | Ohio State University alumni | Celebrity Fit Club participants | Jewish American writers | Jewish American comedians | LGBT Jews