Artie was born and grew up in New Jersey. His mother was a homemaker, and his father was a contractor. Two weeks after Artie was born, his father went on trial for counterfeiting money, but was spared jail time out of sympathy for his young son. Growing up, his family identified themselves as Italian-Americans, despite having German and Native American ancestry on his father's side. Artie has said that his father's background "has always been a gray area".
During high school Artie excelled in baseball, becoming an All County third baseman, and spent his free time working with his contractor father. Some time after Lange finished high school in 1985, his father fell off a roof and broke his back, becoming quadriplegic. He would eventually die from complications due to this fall, although Artie has speculated that his father may have committed suicide (perhaps with the assistance of a third party).
After finishing school, Lange was arrested for attempted bank robbery. He claimed he was only trying to impress a cute bank teller by passing her a fake holdup note that said he was armed and demanded $50,000. Unfortunately, the note included his name -- and the teller took it seriously, triggering the silent alarm. Lange attended the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, from March to June of 1987, as part of an agreement his lawyer arranged to avoid Lange serving jail time for his attempted bank robbery charge, along with 2 years of probation and 25 hours of community service.
Based on his work at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, Artie was offered a radio job in Wyoming.[1] Instead of taking the job he stayed in New Jersey and took up work as a longshoreman to help support his family; it was around this time that he first started doing stand-up comedy. Artie eventually quit his longshoreman job to focus full time on his comedy career. In 1995 he got his big break landing a role in the original cast of FOX's sketch comedy show MADtv.
Lange was one of the original nine cast members of MADtv when the series debuted in 1995. Unlike some of his fellow cast members on MADtv, Lange came to the show with limited sketch comedy experience, his background being in stand-up comedy. It was around this time that Artie became heavily involved with drugs, particularly cocaine. He has stated that his lowest point of cocaine use was during a shooting of the MADtv sketch "Babewatch", wherein Artie played a pig who was a lifeguard. Because the sketch involved Artie going through hours of make up to transform him into a pig, he snorted the cocaine in his car in full pig make up, during a break in the shooting of the sketch. Upon returning from the shoot, Artie passed out in his hotel room, and awoke to find he had defecated in his own bed. The cast and fanbase of The Howard Stern Show now refer to this incident as "The Pig Story." His tenure with MADtv came to a dramatic end when, during a cocaine binge, the police were called to the studio. Lange fled, running through a number of backyards and stores before being arrested. He was charged with cocaine possession, assaulting an officer, and possessing an open alcoholic container in his car, among other charges. Upon Lange's arrest, legendary jazz producer and songwriter Quincy Jones, an executive producer for MADtv, stepped in and arranged for Artie to continue on the show for a second season. Lange's sobriety did not last and he was fired after two seasons.
Artie performed as a few recurring characters on the show, such as "My White Momma", but was mostly used for impressions. Among the people he imitated were Ed Harris, Ed McMahon, F. Lee Bailey, George Clooney, Joe Pesci, Larry Csonka, Newt Gingrich, Richard Karn, Roseanne Barr, Rosie O'Donnell, Rush Limbaugh, Wayne Knight, and Yassir Arafat. Though Artie was only on the show for two seasons, he has become one of the most famous MADtv alums. During the show's tenth season, Artie again appeared on MADtv to participate in an episode.
Following a short jail term and successful completion of a drug rehabilitation program, comedian Norm MacDonald contacted Lange and offered him the role of Norm's character's half-brother in the 1998 movie Dirty Work. While promoting the movie, Norm brought Artie to The Howard Stern Show. Following that appearance, Artie appeared numerous times on the show, and was eventually asked to take over Jackie Martling's chair when Martling left the Stern show in 2001.
Since becoming a member of the show, Howard has often teased Lange for his eating habits, his role in the poorly-received movie Dirty Work and his lack of professionalism; however, Stern also makes a point to praise Lange's comedic talents. Stern is especially amazed by Artie's ability to memorize and deliver lines with perfect timing. Artie's almost flawless renditions of scenes from movies such as The Godfather have become a Stern and audience favorite. Stern and his staff have commented that Lange's life is a sort of perpetual adolescence; his mother delivers food parcels and cleans his apartment, he continually gorges himself on pizza and other high-fat foods, and his frequent drunken binges are legendary among Stern fans.
In early June 2005, Lange began missing work at the Howard Stern show, prompting concerns of a possible relapse into the substance abuse which affected him previously. The situation climaxed in Lange behaving incoherently and belligerently while on-the-air. Lange subsequently missed the next two days of work.
At the time, Lange's absence from the show went largely unmentioned and was written off as stress from doing the radio show and beginning production of his movie Beer League. The real reason for Lange's absence was revealed in a spontaneous revelation on the September 21, 2006 Howard Stern Show, on which Lange acknowledged that he was regularly snorting heroin from February to June 2005. Lange discussed prior episodes of heroin use, beginning when he was a stand-up comedian and continuing until Beer League was set to begin shooting. Lange detailed his painful withdrawal, which included common side effects such as cold sweats, shaking, and vomiting. Lange recalled disconnecting the telephone to avoid speaking with his mother, who ultimately intervened and helped Artie recover. Lange was threatened with legal action by the Beer League producers if he failed to show up for the first day of shooting in June 2005, which led Lange to secure a home visit from a doctor who prescribed Lange with buprenorphine (Subutex) to alleviate his heroin dependency. Since starting the medicine, Artie has claimed to be free of any illegal substances, though he has gained almost 100 pounds since quitting heroin.
In the days leading up to Stern's departure from terrestrial radio, Lange revealed that he and Gary Dell'Abate were approached by Infinity Broadcasting about replacing Howard Stern on terrestrial radio with their own show. Lange claimed he was offered roughly $5 million to defect, but he and Dell'Abate claimed to have never given the offer much thought.
Artie is not shy about sharing his Personal life on the Stern show. Lange lost his virginity October 3, 1985, about a week before his 18th birthday. due to being young for his grade, he had already graduated high school. The act took place in Lange's 1974 AMC Matador.[2] Lange frequently discussed his on-again/off-again relationship with longtime girlfriend Dana Sironi after they began dating in early spring 2002. Most of their problems stemmed from Lange's lifestyle choices. In mid-2006 Lange stated that the couple had officially broken up. Artie cited his heroin use as the primary reason for their break-up, and claimed to have warned her that she would be "tortured" if they stayed together. However, Lange stated on the show in early November 2006 that he and Dana were back together again, to some extent, but that the situation was a mystery even to him. On the November 27, 2006 show, Artie said that "it was now completely over" and said that he had sex with a 28-year-old woman in Atlantic City during the Thanksgiving hiatus, who was not a prostitute.
In January 2006, Lange revealed that a small amount of another man's semen had once landed on his sweatshirt during a cocaine-and-ecstasy-induced sexual orgy in which the male partner in the couple next to him and his female porn star friend, reached an orgasm carelessly shooting his semen in Artie's direction. He has also talked about having sex with prostitutes and losing thousands of dollars through gambling, and has gone into graphic detail about his bowel problems.
Artie remains very close to his family which includes his sister Stacie, a successful corporate fashion designer[3], and his mother Judy, who retired in March 2007 from a secretarial career[4].
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Catchphrases
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