Editing Michael Richards (section)

==Early life==
[[File:Michael Richards HS Yearbook.jpeg|thumb|left|165px|Richards as a senior at [[Thousand Oaks High School]] in [[Thousand Oaks, California]] (1967)]]

Richards was born in [[Culver City, California]], to a [[Catholic]] family.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-lewis/michael-richards-is-not-j_b_34772.html |title = Michael Richards is not Jewish (Not that there's anything wrong with that)| website=[[HuffPost]] |date = November 23, 2006}}</ref> He is the son of Phyllis (née Nardozzi), a [[medical record]]s librarian. As a child, Richards was told his father was William Richards, an [[Engineer's degree|electrical engineer]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.filmreference.com/film/97/Michael-Richards.html |title=Michael Richards Biography (1949?-) |publisher=Filmreference.com |access-date=October 12, 2010}}</ref> who died in a car crash when Michael was two.<ref name="pp">{{cite magazine |last=Lipton |first=Michael A. |date=March 8, 1993 |title=Man Overboard! |url=http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20109913,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140125215849/https://people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20109913,00.html |archive-date=2014-01-25 |access-date=July 14, 2015 |magazine=[[People (magazine)|People]]}}</ref> He later learned his mother's pregnancy was the result of a sexual assault and that she considered abortion and adoption before deciding to raise him as a single mother. Richards was also raised by a grandmother who suffered from [[schizophrenia]].<ref>{{cite news | first=Jack | last=Hobbs | url=https://nypost.com/2023/11/09/entertainment/seinfelds-michael-richards-book-to-detail-2006-racist-outburst/ | title=Seinfeld's Michael Richards book to detail 2006 racist outburst | work=[[New York Post]] |date=November 9, 2023 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|first=Gillian|last=Telling|url=https://people.com/michael-richards-recalls-learning-he-was-the-result-of-a-sexual-assault-8653050|title=Michael Richards Recalls Learning He Was the Result of a Sexual Assault: 'I Had to Come to Terms with My Conception'|website=[[People (magazine)|People]]|date=May 25, 2024}}</ref>

Richards graduated from [[Thousand Oaks High School]]. In 1968, he appeared as a contestant on ''[[The Dating Game]]'' but was not chosen for a date. He was [[Conscription in the United States|drafted]] into the [[United States Army]] in 1970. He trained as a medic and was stationed in [[West Germany]], where he was a member of a theatrical group called The Training Road Show.<ref>{{cite news|author=Barbara DeMarco Barrett|title=The Spaz at Home|publisher=Orange Coat Magazine|page=34|date=June 1997}}</ref> He became interested in performing after taking a theatrical class in seventh grade.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-09-28 |title=Michael Richards Net Worth (Updated 2023), Height, Income Source And Biography - NetWorthDekho |url=https://networthdekho.com/michael-richards-net-worth/ |access-date=2022-12-29 |language=en-US}}</ref>

After being honorably discharged, Richards used the benefits of the [[G.I. Bill]] to enroll in the [[California Institute of the Arts]] and earned a [[Bachelor of Arts]] in drama from the [[Evergreen State College]] in 1975.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=NewsLibrary&p_multi=TNTB&d_place=TNTB&p_theme=newslibrary2&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0F11B7CD33E36831&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM | title=NewsLibrary.com – newspaper archive, clipping service – newspapers and other news sources | date=April 30, 1995}}</ref> He also had a short-lived [[Improvisational comedy|improv]] act with [[Ed Begley Jr.]] During this period, he enrolled at [[Los Angeles Valley College]] and continued to appear in student productions.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Richards |first=Michael |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Entrances_and_Exits/YkvzEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |title=Entrances and Exits |date=2024-06-04 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-63758-914-4 |language=en}}</ref>