Iconic radio-star and self proclaimed ‘King of all Media,’Howard Stern in a interview with Rolling Stone Magazine said he turned down Artie Lange’s offer to appear on the show recently. Standup comedian and Howard Stern show sidekick Artie Lange attempted suicide Jan. 2010, shocking Sterns fans across the globe.
According to his imdb.com bio, Artie Lange is most famous for being a sidekick on the “The Howard Stern Radio Show.” He joined the show in 2001, bringing an average guy prospective to the radio and E network shows. “Arthur Steven Lange grew up a child of a middle class family in Union, New Jersey. At Union High School, Lange excelled in baseball, becoming an All County third baseman.”
“Working long afternoons with his loving contractor father, Artie developed a comical view of social classes, and his place in life as a barrel chested Italian boy. After Artie completed high school, his father fell off a roof and became a quadriplegic. Artie changed his college plans to be near his family, taking up odd jobs as a clerk, laborer and cab driver.”
“After his fathers’ death four years later, Artie gave up his Port of Newark longshoreman’s’ job to play his first gig at New York’s Improv in Hell’s Kitchen.” Artie increasingly gained success as he pursued sketch comedy, helping to create the popular improvisation group, “Live On Tape.” Doing improvisation landed Artie his first major break. He was cast as an original member of Fox’s “MADtv” in 1995.
Hollywood success coupled with substance abuse and an arrest for possession of cocaine brought the comedian down. Mad TV fired him in 1997. “After rehab, depression and a 40-pound weight gain, Lange found himself out of work until “Saturday Night Live” comedian Norm MacDonald remembered him.
Lange played MacDonald’s sidekick in both Dirty Work (1998) and ABC’s “Norm” (1999). As a guest during a promotional tour with MacDonald, Howard Stern first heard and liked Lange. Years before, Artie and his father listened daily to the Howard Stern Show.”
Lange often joked about his battles with weight and drug addiction, it was a part of the show. In 2010 he published a riveting memoir about his turbulent life that stern fans everywhere flocked to buy.
He often spoke about how much he loved his family, so it is sad that his mother was the one to find him in his Hoboken, N.J., flat with nine self-inflicted stab wounds, according to the New York Post. Luckily surgeons were able to save the comedian despite his wounds and the massive bleeding.
“Artie doesn’t hold anything back,” Anthony Bozza, co-author of Lange’s 2008 memoir, “Too Fat to Fish,” told ABCNews.com. “He’s incredibly honest. I’ve never met anyone who is able to do that and is still so obviously in the throes of it.”
Lange’s suicide attempt has reminded us all about the dark side of comedy. So often it is the people that make us laugh that suffer the most with inner demons.
Ever since the day Lange attempted suicide and left the show fans have been wondering what’s next for the lovable and boisterous self-admitted drunkard. According to the inquisitr.com, Lange says returning to The Howard Stern Show would be “the greatest thing ever,” and he understands how complicated things are right now.
Lange, Stern’s former side kick, hasn’t been on the show since December 2009. It was the following month January 2010, that the public learned the gruesome details of his heartbreaking suicide attempt, Lange reportedly stabbed himself multiple times in the abdomen with a knife.
“Listen, I was on the greatest show of all time for about nine years, and I put them in a very awkward situation, to say the least,” Lange told a caller on a Fox Sports Radio appearance – his first since January 2010 – with buddy Nick DiPaolo. “So what am I gonna do?”
The 43-year-old comedian has offered to return to the Sirius radio show to speak about what happened, but Stern is reluctant to accept the offer.
“He said to me recently that he would be willing to come on the air and explain what happened and stuff,” Stern told Rolling Stone magazine. “I don’t even feel strong enough within myself or that I’d be doing the right thing by him, because I don’t want to do the wrong thing for Artie. I just want Artie to stay alive.”
Stern is saying no right now, but who knows what the future might bring, and if Lange will return to the show in one way or the other. Fans everywhere are hoping with fingers crossed and waiting for that magic day when they will turn on their satellite radio’ and hear the gruff comedian’s voluminous laughter once again as he obsequiously banters with the iconic radio-star Howard Stern.
Stern recently renewed his contract with Sirius, ensuring he will be on the air for at least another 5 years. In that amount of time, no one knows what can happen?
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