Editing Steven Wright (section)

==Career==
Wright began performing stand-up comedy in 1979<ref name= "newsday"/><ref>Young, Chris (October 11, 2007). [http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A36910 "Behind a new album, comedian Steven Wright plays Pittsburgh for the first time in five years"]. ''[[Pittsburgh City Paper]]''. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090827153802/http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A36910 |date=August 27, 2009 }}</ref> at the Comedy Connection in Boston.<ref name= "newsday"/><ref name= "bostonglobe"/><ref>{{cite news| last= Leader| first=Jody| date=12 November 1989| title=Comedy fans meet Mr. Wright| url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1454&dat=19891112&id=EEpOAAAAIBAJ&pg=5576,4837256| newspaper= [[Star-News]]| location= Wilmington, North Carolina| agency= [[Los Angeles Daily News]] | page=1H |access-date=3 November 2021| quote=His first gig was at Boston's Comedy Connection during open-mike night. 'I [Wright] had about two minutes of material written, and I just stood there, a nervous wreck.'}}</ref> Wright cites stand-up comic [[George Carlin]] and director and former stand-up comic [[Woody Allen]] as comedic influences.<ref name="nyt1">{{cite news| last= Keepnews| first=Peter| date=February 10, 2008| title=A Strange Career Takes an Odd Turn| url= https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/arts/television/10keep.html| newspaper=[[The New York Times]]| page=AR28| url-access=subscription}}</ref> In 1982, [[Peter Lassally]], executive producer of [[NBC]]'s ''[[The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson]]'', saw Wright performing on a bill with other local comics at the Ding Ho comedy club in Cambridge, a venue Wright described as "half Chinese restaurant and half comedy club. It was a pretty weird place."<ref name=newsday/> Lassally booked Wright on ''The Tonight Show'', and Wright so impressed host [[Johnny Carson]] and the studio audience that less than a week later he was invited to appear on the show again.<ref name=nyt1/>

=== Stand-up success ===
Wright's 1985 comedy album ''[[I Have a Pony]]'' was released on [[Warner Bros. Records]], received critical acclaim and was nominated for the [[Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album]]. The album's success landed him an [[HBO]] special, in the ''On Location:'' series, taped at [[Bill Graham (promoter)|''Wolfgang's'']] in San Francisco. It was broadcast as ''A Steven Wright Special.''<ref>{{cite news| url= https://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/16/arts/steven-wright-comic-on-location.html| title=Steven Wright, Comic, 'On Location'| first=John J.| last=O'Connor| date= September 16, 1985| newspaper= The New York Times| access-date=November 3, 2021}}</ref>

By then Wright had firmly developed a new brand of obscure, laid-back performing and was rapidly building a cultlike following and an onstage persona characterized by an aura of obscurity, with his penchant for non sequiturs and impassive, slow delivery adding to his mystique. The performance became one of HBO's longest-running and most requested comedy specials and propelled him to great success on the college-arena concert circuit.{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

===Continued success beyond stand-up===
In 1989, Wright and fellow producer [[Dean Parisot]] won an [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]] for their 30-minute short film ''[[The Appointments of Dennis Jennings]]'', directed by Parisot, written by Mike Armstrong and Wright, and starring Wright and [[Rowan Atkinson]]. Upon accepting the Oscar, Wright said, "We're really glad that we cut out the other sixty minutes." In 1992, Wright had a recurring role on the television sitcom ''[[Mad About You]]''. He also supplied the voice of the radio DJ in writer-director [[Quentin Tarantino]]'s film ''[[Reservoir Dogs]]'' that year. "Dean Parisot's wife [[Sally Menke]] is Quentin Tarantino's [film] [[Film editing|editor]], so when she was editing the movie and it was getting down toward the end where they didn't have the radio DJ yet, she thought of me and told Quentin and he liked the idea," Wright explained in 2009.<ref name=newsday/>

In 1995, Wright provided voiceover work for [[TBS (American TV channel)|TBS]]'s Disaster Area cartoon block.<ref>{{cite web| url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXFecX4JR88| archive-url= https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/vXFecX4JR88| archive-date=2021-12-11 | url-status=live| title=TBS - Disaster Area Bumper - 1995| date= June 4, 2017| publisher = TBS |via= YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

Numerous lists of jokes attributed to Wright circulate on the Internet, sometimes of dubious origin. Wright has said, "Someone showed me a site, and half of it that said I wrote it, I didn't write. Recently, I saw one, and I didn't write any of it. What's disturbing is that with a few of these jokes, I wish I had thought of them. A giant amount of them, I'm embarrassed that people think I thought of them because some are really bad."<ref>{{cite interview | interviewer = Tasha Robinson | date= January 29, 2003 | first= Steven | last= Wright| url= http://www.avclub.com/article/steven-wright-13796 | title= Interview: Steven Wright| work =[[The A.V. Club]]| accessdate =}}</ref>

After his 1990 comedy special ''Wicker Chairs and Gravity'', Wright continued to do stand-up performances, but these were largely absent from television, and he only occasionally made guest spots on late-night talk shows. In 1999, he wrote and directed the 30-minute short ''[[One Soldier]]'', saying it's "about a soldier who was in the Civil War, right after the war, with all these existentialist thoughts and wondering if there is a God and all that stuff."<ref name=newsday />

In May 2000, Wright and other Ding Ho alumni, including [[Lenny Clarke]], Barry Crimmins, [[Steve Sweeney (comedian)|Steve Sweeney]], Bill Sohonage and [[Jimmy Tingle]], appeared at a reunion benefit for comic [[Bob Lazarus]], who was diagnosed with [[leukemia]].<ref name= loaded>Baltrusis, Sam (April 8, 2008). [http://www.loadedgunboston.com/2008/04/steven-wright-headlines-ding-ho-reunion.html "Steven Wright headlines Ding Ho reunion benefit"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090919090420/http://www.loadedgunboston.com/2008/04/steven-wright-headlines-ding-ho-reunion.html|date=September 19, 2009}}. LoadedGunBoston.com; accessed April 5, 2022.</ref>

In 2006, Wright produced his first stand-up special in 16 years, ''Steven Wright: [[When the Leaves Blow Away]]'', originally aired on [[Comedy Central]] on October 21, 2006. On September 25, 2007, Wright released his second album, ''[[I Still Have a Pony]]'', a CD release of the material from ''When The Leaves Blow Away''. It was nominated for the [[Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album]].{{citation needed|date=November 2022}}

Beginning in 2008, Wright occasionally appeared on ''[[The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson]]'' as a visiting celebrity, often dropping by to help with the fan-mail segment. He joined a small cadre of Hollywood comedy celebrities who supported the show.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=43020005 |title=Steven on the Late Late Show |website=Vids.myspace.com |access-date=June 12, 2012 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20100805022519/http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=43020005 |archive-date=August 5, 2010 |df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://video.tvguide.com/The+Late+Late+Show/The+Late+Late+Show++Steven+Wright+Drops+By/1772664 |title=The Late Late Show – Steven Wright Drops By |date=July 23, 2011 |access-date=June 12, 2012 |url-status= unfit |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110723044856/http://video.tvguide.com/The+Late+Late+Show/The+Late+Late+Show++Steven+Wright+Drops+By/1772664 |archive-date=July 23, 2011 }}</ref>