Most people know comedian Steve Harvey as an MC with a unique and extremely funny personality on TV shows. But few people know that he dropped out of college, worked from job to job to make a living, even had to live in his car.
Steven Harvey, 62 years old, is a multi-talented American media artist with the ability to host, radio announcer, comedian and write books. He previously hosted The Steve Harvey Morning Show, Steve Harvey and Family Feud. He is the author of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, published in March 2009, and Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find and Keep a Man.
Previously, Harvey hosted Showtime at the Apollo, The Steve Harvey Show, and especially The Original Kings of Comedy. He has won the Daytime Emmy Award three times, and won the NAACP Image Award 11 times in many different genres. Harvey appeared in many famous entertainment shows in North America and was dubbed the “King of American Comedy”.
As a famous and famous person today, few people know that Steve went through difficult years in his life as a fisherman.
Broderick Steven Steve was born in Welch, West Virginia, on January 17, 1957. He is the youngest son in a family of five children. His parents are Eloise and Jesse Harvey. His father, a coal miner, died in 2000 of lung disease.
When Steve was young, his family moved to Cleveland, where he graduated from Glenville High School in 1974 before returning to his hometown to attend West Virginia University. Few people know that, as a child, Harvey had a stuttering problem. In an assignment in 6th grade, little Steve wrote down his dream of wanting to appear on TV.
After graduating, Steve spent his early 20s working odd jobs as an insurance salesman, a mailman, and he even planned to become a professional boxer – but still didn’t. find anything that truly connects with what he truly desires.
It wasn’t until he first stood on stage as a comedian in the late 80s that Steve knew who he was.
His marriage to his first wife, Marcia Harvey, collapsed, and he lived on a meager budget. Because he sent most of his earnings home to twins Karli and Brandi Harvey, along with a deal or two that fell through, “suddenly I was homeless,” Steve once said. when giving an interview.
Even though he would stay in a hotel every time he had a show, when he finished, there was nowhere to go and he began living in his 1976 Ford Tempo, using the in-seat cooler. the back of the car as a makeshift refrigerator, and regularly shower in hotel bathrooms, gas stations or pool showers.
“I didn’t think I would do comedy until I was 27. I was homeless from 30 to 33 years old. Those 3 years I lived in a car,” he confided on the show Sway in the Morning.
Steve finally discovered that standing on stage and performing comedy was his life’s destiny in 1985. After honing his comedy skills over many years of performing in clubs With a small set, he came closer to glory than ever when he reached the final of the Johnnie Walker National Comedy Talent Search in 1989.
From then on, Steve’s career took off. In 1993, he took over as host of Showtime at the Apollo, the popular variety show filmed at Harlem’s legendary Apollo Theater. Steve planned to host Showtime at the Apollo until 2000, but his talent and talent for variations on this show far exceeded expectations, making Showtime’s name and popularity even more widespread.
On that tour, known as “the kings of the comedy scene,” Harvey and Cedric the Entertainer joined Bernie Mac and D.L. Hughley fooled viewers with skydiving tricks. The four men then became a huge nationwide sensation. In 1999, The Kings of Comedy became the highest-grossing comedy tour ever in the US, earning more than 19 million USD.
Steve and his three companions became national celebrities, their status further enhanced by the release of Spike Lee’s 2000 documentary, Kings of Comedy, which chronicled the Highlights of two shows in North Carolina in front of an enthusiastic audience. Fans who watched the show on screen felt the same way; the film cost just $3 million to make, ultimately grossing more than $38 million at the box office.
While Steve’s hosting role on Kings of Comedy remains the most iconic performance of his career, he rose to the occasion, using the show’s reputation as a foundation to build on. Build a one-man multimedia empire.
In 2000, Steve launched a daily talk radio show, The Steve Harvey Morning Show. Initially broadcast only in Los Angeles and Dallas, the show quickly sold rights across the country and continues to air daily on dozens of stations. Steve won the 2007 Radio & Records magazine Presenter/Show of the Year award.
Even as he transformed himself into a major radio personality, Steve continued to pursue stage work and acting. The Steve Harvey Show on the WB went off the air after a six-year run in 2002, but Steve was soon taking on other projects. He hosted a short-lived reality show called “Steve Harvey’s Big Time,” which aired on the WB from 2003 to 2005.
He also made his big screen debut in a small role in the 2003 film “The Fighting Temptations,” before landing larger supporting roles in “You Got Served” (2004), “Johnson Family Vacation” (2004). ) and voice actor in the animated version of “Racing Racing” (2005).
In 2010, Steve’s name was associated with another program. He took on the role of MC of the long-standing family game show Family Feud and turned his cleverness into a new spice for audiences nationwide.
In 2012, Steve ended his 27-year stand-up comedy career in his final show in Las Vegas with a duration of 2 hours. To prove that he can go further, he is currently focusing on producing and hosting television shows, leaving the name “King of Comedy” in the past.
Steve is the only Hollywood character who has hosted three channels including NBC, ABC, Fox among the four American television giants, only missing CBS.
In 2015, the audience mentioned MC Steve’s name more when he had a professional accident – announcing the wrong name of the winner of the Miss Universe contest. Being criticized, Steve quickly admitted his mistake.
In 2016, he and famous talented MC Ellen DeGeneres co-founded the TV show Little Big Shots, in which he is the host and guests are children who will reveal their talents and chat with Steve. Broadcasting in its third season now, this TV show is among the most popular shows on NBC channel with 93% of the total survey participants liking it.
Another successful field of multi-talented MC Steve is writing books. In 2009, he released his first book titled Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. A year later, he continued to write Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find and Keep a Man. Both of these books became phenomena in America and were continuously republished.
Steve is successful today, has everything: money, career. But his personal life encountered many difficulties. He had a difficult married life, until he met his third and current wife.
According to Steve, his third wife – Marjorie Bridges – had a great influence on his life. Before meeting Marjorie, he wasn’t exactly depressed, just unhappy, Harvey recalls.
During the 2012 show, Steve said: “God has given me more than I could ever dream of. It is only You, there is no one else but You.” Besides, he also thanked his wife – Mrs. Marjorie Bridges: “I want to thank Marjorie for helping me develop my career. I didn’t do anything good until she came to me. I’m so grateful.”
Before meeting and marrying Marjorie, Steve went through two failed marriages. He married Marcia Harvey in 1980. During this period, he pursued an acting career but did not receive his wife’s consent. The couple’s marriage broke up in 1994. Two years later, Steve married Mary Lee Harvey but divorced in 2005 when there were quite a few differences in the relationship between the two.
Through 3 marriages, Steve has a total of 7 children, including his wife’s children. He once exclaimed: “I don’t work for myself, I work for my children. I work 4 full-time jobs at once for my children. I hope that when I die, my children will still remember that there was someone who cared for them more than themselves.”
Steve’s life was filled with many failures, difficulties, and disorientation, but after all, the multi-talented MC still stood up and found the motivation to live to achieve success and be as happy as he is today.
