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Wallace Shawn

Wallace Shawn
Wallace Shawn
Born: Nov 12, 1943 in New York City, New York
Occupation: Actor, Writer,
Active: '80s-2000s
Major Genres: Comedy, Children's/Family
Career Highlights: Toy Story, My Dinner With Andre, Vanya on 42nd Street
First Major Screen Credit: Strong Medicine (1979)
34 Videos for Wallace Shawn
Toy Story 3 (2010) Critical Care (1997) Nice Girls Don't Explode (1987)
Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008) Vegas Vacation (1997) Prick Up Your Ears (1987)
Happily N'Ever After (2006) All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (1996) Radio Days (1987)
Southland Tales (2006) House Arrest (1996) The Bedroom Window (1987)
Chicken Little (2005) Clueless (1995) The Princess Bride (1987)
Melinda and Melinda (2004) Canadian Bacon (1994) Head Office (1986)
The Incredibles (2004) Vanya on 42nd Street (1994) Heaven Help Us (1985)
The Haunted Mansion (2003) The Meteor Man (1993) The Hotel New Hampshire (1984)
Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2001) Mom and Dad Save the World (1992) Lovesick (1983)
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) Shadows and Fog (1991) Atlantic City (1980)
The Prime Gig (2000) She's Out of Control (1989) Manhattan (1979)
Just Write (1998)
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Biography:

The son of an editor for the {~New Yorker}, the diminutive comedic actor Wallace Shawn speaks with a recognizable lisp that is appropriate for his frequent portrayals of little irate men. A graduate of both Harvard and Oxford University, he has taught several courses in English and struggled as a playwright in the early '70s; in 1977 he translated Machiavelli's {+The Mandrake}.

Shawn broke into films soon after, building a successful career as a supporting actor to help fund his playwriting. He debuted in two of the best films of 1979: Woody Allen's Manhattan and Bob Fosse's All That Jazz. In 1981, he co-wrote the semi-autobiographical My Dinner With André, a talky comedy starring himself and theater director André Gregory in a dinner conversation, directed by Louis Malle.

The movie was acclaimed by critics, but many audiences grew tired during its two-hour running time. After this personal project, Shawn would build a career out of playing brief but surprisingly memorable roles in a long list of movies. One of his most warmly remembered appearances was in 1987 as Vizzini, the inept leader of a misfit criminal gang, in The Princess Bride.

The same year, he supplied the heroic voice for the Masked Avenger in Woody Allen's Radio Days. Taking the next step to straight voice acting, he lent his distinctive speech to the animated features The Goofy Movie, All Dogs Go to Heaven, and both installments of Toy Story.

He also continued to work with Woody Allen throughout the next decade in the films Shadows and Fog and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. Taking his quirky persona to the small screen, Shawn had several guest-star appearances on TV shows like Taxi, Murphy Brown, and The Cosby Show, but he didn't have his own reoccurring character until he reprised his feature-film role of Mr.

Hall for the ABC sitcom version of Clueless. He quickly followed that with the role of Zek on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Throughout his acting career, Shawn has managed to continue writing successful plays, and eventually adapted one of them, {+The Designated Mourner}, for a feature film in 1997.

After a few brief appearances in some forgettable films in the late '90s, he gained some larger roles in TV movies and miniseries. In 2002, he played the publishing boss Mr. Gelb for the Greta story in Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity: Three Portraits. He then joined a large cast of other comedians for Danny DeVito's crime comedy Duplex in 2003.

~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide.