Phil Hartman

Phil Hartman was born September 24th, 1948 in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. He grew up in Connecticut and Southern California as one of eight children.

He started out his career as a graphic designer after graduating from art school, and designed over 40 album covers and a logo for Crosby, Stills and Nash.

After taking some comedy workshops he was given his first big break in 1975 when he joined the LA comedy troup "The Groundlings" which also starred Paul Reubens (aka Pee-Wee Herman).

Phil had a role on Reubens Saturday morning show Pee-Wee's Playhouse as Kap 'n' Karl, and in 1985 he co-wrote "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure".

The next year he was given his second big break as he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, where he flourished for eight years creating numerous characters and honing his comedy skills.

After leaving SNL in 1994, Phil Hartman was given many starring sit-com offers but instead of seeking a starring role he opted to take a supporting role on a funny little comedy.

That funny little sit-com turned out to be NewsRadio, and after four years of drifting through the NBC schedule, it was felt that Fall 98 would be the year that Newsradio would finally get the recognition that was due. ... It did.

Hartman worked as a voice actor on 2 video games. For Virtual Springfield he provided dialogue for 2 characters he played in the Simpsons television show. In Blasto he played the lead character, Captain Blasto. The game's developers said they had created the character with Hartman in mind.

Phil died tragically in May 1998 at age 40 from gunshot wounds inflicted by his wife, Brynn, who took her own life shortly thereafter.