Elayne Boosler
Bio
Comedian/writer/animal activist Elayne Boosler, already named one of Comedy Central’s “Greatest 100 Standup Comedians of All Time”, was named as one of Rolling Stone Magazine’s “50 Best Stand-up Comics of All Time”. Rolling Stone also called her “The First Lady of Standup Comedy”. In 2017 and 2018, she was seen weekly on the CNN Comedy Series “The History of Comedy”. Elayne can also currently be seen in the HBO documentary: “Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind”, and she voices the role of “Mama Pete” on Disney’s “Mickey and the Roadster Racers”. She was recently featured on Episode 7, season 4, of “My Crazy Ex Girlfriend”, which aired on The CW November 30, 2018
Boosler is best known for her thoughtful and feisty socially conscious humor, and her love of baseball and animals, all sharing a big part of her act. For over forty years, she has appeared on seemingly every talk show ever on TV, has written and starred in five of her own one-hour Showtime standup comedy specials, written and directed two movies for Cinemax, appeared regularly on HBO’s “Comic Relief”, on “Politically Incorrect” with Bill Maher over thirty times, and has hosted innumerable specials, series, and events both live and on TV. She has traveled the world doing standup comedy for over forty years, from the London Palladium to the White House Press Correspondents Dinner for President Clinton to the Command Performance for the Queen of England, to colleges, clubs, Las Vegas, fairs, theaters, corporate events and Ford’s Theater for the president and congress. She has toured Africa and the Middle East for our troops, and makes it a point to do benefits which fundraise for our veterans. In December, 2016, she performed throughout Israel as part of Comedy for Koby, a fundraising tour for children affected by violence throughout the region.
Elayne has been involved in hands-on animal rescue and advocacy since 1996, and in 2001 founded, and runs, her own nationwide and beyond, all-species animal rescue and advocacy non-profit organization, (Elayne Boosler’s) “Tails of Joy“. Tails of Joy has saved tens of thousands of animals, made life better for thousands more, and advocates for better treatment of all animals throughout the world. Since Tails of Joy is all volunteer, all donations, and everything Tails of Joy sells, benefit rescue 100%.
A lifelong crossword puzzle lover, her name has appeared in over 30 New York Times puzzles as well as scores more in newspapers around the country. Last year, to celebrate 75 years of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, Elayne was chosen, along withJesse Eisenberg, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Clinton, Neil Patrick Harris, John Lithgow, Rachel Maddow and more, to each construct a puzzle with a regular puzzle maker, for the Times. Patrick Merrell and Elayne’s puzzle appeared in the Times on July 12th, and you can read all about her experience at the New York Times Wordplay blog written by Elayne. You may also enjoy an earlier Wordplay blog she wrote for The NY Times. She currently has an article up about crosswords, animal rescue and more at Puzzle Nation.
For years, she has done TV and radio baseball color commentary, sports shows and panels, and sung the National Anthem and/or thrown out a first pitch, many times for many teams. She has done untold numbers of baseball benefits and played yearly at Dodger Stadium as part of Hollywood Stars Day.
In 1985 she financed her own comedy special “Party of One” (and no, she had no credit cards) when the cable networks would not let a female standup have a special. The success of that show, “Party of One”, is widely credited for blowing open the gates of TV for female standup comedians. She recently spent several years as the permanent guest host on Stephanie Miller’s syndicated radio show, and hosted the game show Balderdash for NBC/ION in 2005-2006. In 2016 she hosted the TV show “Gotham Comedy Live” on AXS TV. She moderated a Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate on C-Span for NOW, and the piece she wrote for Time magazine on May 1, 2018 on the White House Press Correspondents Dinner went viral. That is followed up by her current article for CNN.com on the state of comedy today.
In 2013, Elayne was commissioned by the Glendale Symphony Orchestra to write a performance piece for spoken word/orchestra. She wrote “Rescue – A True Story”, for piano, cello, clarinet and comedian. She has since performed this beautiful story of the life of a rescued dog with several symphony orchestras. She has written for TV, print and film, and you can find a current large body of her work at the Huffington Post.
