Iliza Shlesinger

Iliza Shlesinger
Shlesinger in 2012
Birth name	Iliza Vie Shlesinger
Born	(1983-02-22) February 22, 1983 Dallas, TX, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, television, web series
Years active	2007–present

Iliza Vie Shlesinger^[1] (/ʃlɛsɪnɡər/;^[2] born February 22, 1983) is an American comedian. She was the 2008 winner of NBC's Last Comic Standing, went on to host the syndicated dating show Excused and currently (2016) hosts the TBS comedy/game show Separation Anxiety.

Early life

Shlesinger was originally born in Dallas then shortly moved to Los Angelas to attend Emerson College.^[3] She attended the private Greenhill School and participated on the school's improvisation team. She is Jewish.^[4] She performed with ComedySportz Dallas and attended the University of Kansas for her freshman year. She also participated in Semester at Sea. She transferred to Emerson College in Boston, where she majored in film. There, she was a member of the campus' comedy sketch group, Jimmy's Traveling All Stars, and refined her writing and editing skills.

Career

After graduating from college, Shlesinger moved to Los Angeles to pursue stand-up comedy. She was one of the most popular members of the Whiteboy Comedy group of standup comedians in Los Angeles, which brought her to the stage at The Improv in Hollywood.^[5]

In 2007, Shlesinger won Myspace's So You Think You're Funny contest and has been featured as the G4 network's Myspace Girl of the Week. Her television credits include E! Network's Forbes Celebrity 100, TV Guide's America's Next Top Producer, Comedy Central Presents Season 14 Episode 18,^[6] John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show,^[7] Byron Allen's Comics Unleashed, and History Channel's History of a Joke. She has written for Heavy.com and had her own show on GOTV's mobile network.

In 2008, Shlesinger became the first woman, and the youngest, winner of NBC's Last Comic Standing, in the series' sixth season.^[8][9] She was twice selected, by other comedians, to compete in the head-to-head eliminations, and won each time.^[10] She appeared in The Last Comic Standing Tour.^[11]

Shlesinger contributed to Surviving the Holidays, a History Channel holiday special, with Lewis Black, and narrated the 2009 documentary Imagine It!² The Power of Imagination.^[12][13] In 2010, she released an on-demand comedy video, Man Up and Act Like a Lady, and an on-demand comedy album, iliza LIVE, on her website, via The ConneXtion. Around the time of these releases, Shlesinger appeared in a business comedy video series for Slate.^[14][15]

Shlesinger hosted The Weakly News on TheStream.tv from July 7, 2007 to April 9, 2012.^[16][17] She also hosted Excused, a syndicated American reality-based dating competition series, which ran from 2011 to 2013.^[18] She co-stars in the 2013 film Paradise.^[19] She began a podcast called Truth and Iliza in August 2014. Featuring celebrity guests & personal friends, the semi-weekly podcast is a forum for discussing things which bother her and those on the show,^[20] with punk theme song performed by Being Mean to Pixley.^[21]

Shlesinger's first comedy album and video, War Paint, was recorded on December 1, 2012 at The Lakewood Theater in Dallas, Texas, and released on Netflix on September 1, 2013.^[22][23] Her second stand-up special, Freezing Hot, was recorded in Denver, Colorado and premiered on Netflix in January 23, 2015. ^[24] Her third Netflix stand-up special, entitled Confirmed Kills, was recorded at The Vic Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, and premiered on Netflix on September 23, 2016. ^[25]

Shlesinger was comic co-host of StarTalk Radio Show with Neil DeGrasse Tyson for season 7, episode 12 entitled Cosmic Queries: Galactic Grab Bag, post date: 20 May 2016.^[26]

On July 13, 2016, the ABCdigital original short-form digital comedy series Forever 31, created by and starring Shelsinger was released.^[27]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Iliza Shlesinger.

• Official website
• Iliza Shlesinger's channel on YouTube
• Iliza Shlesinger at the Internet Movie Database