Summers were often spent in Yellow Springs, Ohio with his father who was a professor at Antioch University. He enjoyed the peaceful rural atmosphere of Yellow Springs, and as an adult, his home on an Ohio farm would become a family refuge from the more hectic entertainment worlds of New York and Los Angeles.Ĭhappelle was only 14 when he first performed his standup comedy act in public venues in Washington. His mother, a Unitarian minister, was very supportive of her son's talent and frequently accompanied him as a chaperone when he performed in nightclubs and bars. After a few years on stage, Chappelle began to win comedy contests, and by the time he was a senior in high school, he was traveling to comedy jobs on the road, excused from school by the principal so that he could pursue his career.Īfter his graduation from high school, Chappelle made a bargain with his parents. Instead of going to college right away, he would go to New York to work on his comedy act. If he did not succeed after one year, he would consider college. While working with other comics in the Washington area, Chappelle had learned a lot about the comedy clubs of New York, and he had grown to feel that he had to go there to become a real success in comedy.Ĭhappelle took two different approaches to developing his art as a performer and breaking into the national comedy scene. Other comics had advised him that the Boston Comedy Club in Greenwich Village was a good place for younger comedians, so he began performing there to build his reputation in the city. His plan worked well, and within weeks he was not only performing regularly at the Boston, but at comedy clubs all over New York. However, Chappelle was not content just working the club circuit. He wanted to keep an edge of street-wise spontaneity in his work. To do this, he went, quite literally, out on the street and performed comedy in the parks and sidewalks of the city, alongside other street performers. There he met Charles Barnett, a street comedian who became his good friend and mentor. Working on the streets taught Chappelle confidence and honed his fast-paced aggressive style. Impressed by the courage and skill of street comics like Barnett, who had the nerve and skill to capture the attention of passers by, but whose work was seen by so few. When Charles Barnett died of AIDS, Chappelle planned someday to make a film about his mentor, with himself portraying Barnett. Just before the end of his first year in New York, Chappelle performed at the Montreal Comedy Festival. His success at that large event left no doubt that he was destined for a career in comedy. His dedication and nerve were tested during the early 1990s when he was booed off the stage during his standup comedy debut at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem. However, in 1992 he won critical and popular acclaim for his television appearance in Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam on HBO. His popularity began to rise, and he became a regular guest on late-night television shows such as Politically Incorrect, The Late Show With David Letterman, The Howard Stern Show, and Late Night With Conan O'Brien. In 1993 Chappelle landed his first film role: the Mel Brooks comedy Robin Hood: Men in Tights. He had small roles in several other films, but it was his role as the nasty comic Reggie Warrington in Eddie Murphy's 1996 film The Nutty Professor that brought him to the attention of Hollywood.
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