David Cross was born in Atlanta, Georgia, the son of Susi, a computer retailer. Six months later, Cross's family moved to Florida. His family moved a lot during his childhood (living in various parts of New York for five years, then Connecticut, etc.) before settling back in Atlanta, where David turned ten and remained for nine years. Cross attended Northside High School of the Performing Arts in Atlanta, Georgia (now known as North Atlanta High School). He was a member of the Class of 1982. He was elected Treasurer of his Senior class and was voted Most Humorous by his classmates. According to the Northside High School Yearbook of 1982, his most embarrassing moment was "being asked this ridiculously immature question" ("What was your most embarrassing moment?"). Cross began doing stand-up comedy at the age of 18.

The day after he graduated from high school, David Cross went to New York. He didn’t have any kind of a plan and ended up just kind of drifting around. After that David enrolled at Emerson College in Boston. He would drop out after about a semester, but during this semester he discovered his two new favorite things: partying and sketch comedy. Cross had never really partied all that much in high school, but he soon found that he had a pretty high tolerance for it. David joined This is Pathetic, a college sketch group. That is how David met John Ennis. In the summer of 1985, the two aspiring actors took a road trip to L.A., achieving very little in terms of their acting careers. In Boston, Cross began to perform stand-up more regularly. From the mid 1980s to the early 1990s, Boston had a booming comedy scene with plenty of places to perform every night. However, David had a hard time fitting the types of acts being booked most often at the time. He recalls that the scene in Boston at that time was “‘a loud, dumb pandering, racist, homophobic type scene’”.

In 1990, a new type of comedy scene started to emerge at a tiny club called Catch a Rising Star. Cross, Janeane Garofalo, Louis C.K. and other headier comics pretty much took over the place a couple nights a week. After awhile, Cross got twelve other performer/writers together to form the sketch comedy group called Cross Comedy. They had a new show every week, and would often do things to mess with the audience. For example, they would introduce fake comics or plant fake hecklers in the audience. After awhile, they found a really devoted audience. "Cross Comedy" was the first time that David actually focused himself and really got into working on his comedy. Before that he mostly partied and did some stand-up just to get by.

David Cross's Television Career:

David Cross as Tobias Fünke in Arrested Development

Cross began his professional television career as a writer on The Ben Stiller Show. The short-lived Fox Network program hired him toward the end of the series' run, and he occasionally made brief appearances in the sketches. Most notably, he had a speaking role in one of the show's most ambitious sketches, "The Legend of T.J. O'Pootertoot", which was written almost entirely by Cross.

It was during this period that he first met Bob Odenkirk, with whom he would later co-create the HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show in 1995. Cross later co-starred in another Fox production as Tobias Fünke in Arrested Development, which was originally intended to be only a minor role. In addition to these larger roles, he has played various lesser roles on shows like Just Shoot Me, The Drew Carey Show, NewsRadio, Strangers with Candy, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Since October 2005, Cross has been appearing as Stephen Colbert's archnemesis, a fictional liberal radio talk show host named "Russ Lieber" from Madison, Wisconsin on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. He also developed an animated series for Comedy Central called Freak Show, which costarred H. Jon Benjamin and was cancelled due to low ratings. Cross has appeared several times on the MTV2 show Wonder Showzen.

Cross later teamed up with Bob Odenkirk to produce a feature film, based on one of their Mr. Show characters, called Run Ronnie Run. The film was satirical of the reality TV craze, and had cameos from many stars. However, Cross and Odenkirk came into creative conflict with the director, Troy Miller, and after nearly two years of production, New Line Cinema sent it straight to DVD. In 1994 and again in 1999, Cross was a guest voice actor on Joe Frank's radio show, featured in the episodes "The Last Run", "A Hearing", "The O.J. Chronicles" and finally, "Jam".

David Cross's Career Developments

Cross maintains a notable stand-up career consisting of material that often blends left-wing political commentary and satire. He has released two highly-successful CDs to date, Shut Up You Fucking Baby! and It's Not Funny. His social and political comedy echoes other intellectual comedians like Bill Hicks and Lenny Bruce. He was given his own one-hour comedy special on HBO in 1999 entitled The Pride Is Back. In 2004, Shut Up, You Fucking Baby! was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. Cross released his first tour film in 2003 entitled Let America Laugh, and was named number 85 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time.

In 2004, Cross provided voices for a Marine in the Xbox game Halo 2, and a store clerk named Zero in the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Both characters were often whiny and humorous in nature. He was the voice of the violent, alcoholic "Happy-Time Harry" doll in Aqua Teen Hunger Force (credited as Sir Willups Brightslymoore). 2004 saw him direct the music video 10am Automatic for the two man blues-rock band The Black Keys. The video spoofs public access television.

In April 2005, Cross criticized stand-up comedian Larry the Cable Guy in a Rolling Stone interview, saying "It's a lot of anti-gay, racist humor — which people like in America — all couched in 'I'm telling it like it is.' He's in the right place at the right time for that gee-shucks, proud-to-be-a-redneck, I'm-just-a-straight-shooter-multimillionaire-in-cutoff-flannel-selling-ring-tones act. That's where we are as a nation now. We're in a state of vague American values and anti-intellectual pride." This caused Larry to devote a chapter to Cross and the "P.C. left" in his book GIT-R-DONE, claiming that Cross had "screwed with my fans, it was time for me to say something". Cross responded with an Open Letter to Larry the Cable Guy posted on his website. He continues to mock Larry in his stand-up, and satirized Blue Collar TV during a guest appearance on Wonder Showzen. In December 2005, he ended his performance on Comedy Central's "Last Laugh '05" by yelling "GIT-R-DONE!", Larry the Cable Guy's catch phrase, mockingly to the audience as he left the stage. He also pokes fun at Larry the Cable Guy's comedy in Freak Show, with a character called "Danny the Plumber Guy".

Cross appeared in The Strokes' music video for "Juicebox" as a bad local Morning Zoo radio DJ. He also appeared in The New Pornographers' video for "Use It" and, along with Bob Odenkirk and John Ennis, Yo La Tengo's video for "Sugarcube". He also appeared, along with Janeane Garofalo, in Superchunk's video for "Watery Hands". Cross contributes to Vice Magazine, writing a column titled '"My America".

In 2005, he contributed to the UNICEF benefit song, "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?". In October of 2005, Cross was sued by Nashville club owner Thomas Weber, accusing Cross of taping him without permission for Let America Laugh in violation of Weber's privacy rights. Weber put up a website called werenotlaughing.com. In April 2006, the case against David Cross himself was dismissed, leaving Thomas Weber to face Warner Music, Subpop Records, WEA Corporation, and the Alternative Distribution Alliance.

Cross played the character Nathaniel Hörnblowér in the Beastie Boys concert film Awesome; I Fuckin Shot That! in the fictional segment "A Day in the Life of Nathaniel Hörnblowér", which was released in 2006 in theaters and on DVD. Cross plays the role of Allen Ginsberg in the new Bob Dylan film titled I'm Not There. Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence has stated that Cross may appear in the show as his Arrested Development Character, Tobias Funke, in the 7th and final season.

It has also recently been confirmed that David will be providing commentary on the upcoming DVD for alternative band Tool on their long awaited Vicarious music video DVD. He has appeared with the band before doing bits of comedy as an opening act for their shows and members have appeared on Mr. Show several times.

-from wikipedia.com