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Keegan Michael Key Biography | Who Is Keegan Michael Key?
Keegan-Michael Key is an American actor, writer, comedian, and producer. Key starred in the Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele (2012–2015) and co-starred in the USA Network comedy series Playing House (2014–2017). He also spent six seasons as a cast member on Mad TV (2004–2009) and has also made several guest appearances on the U.S. version of Whose Line is it Anyway? on The CW.
Key also appeared in the first season of the FX series Fargo in 2014, and has had a recurring role on the sixth and seventh seasons of Parks and Recreation from 2013–2015. He then hosted the U.S. version of The Planet’s Funniest Animals on Animal Planet from 2005 until the series’ end in 2008.
Keegan has had supporting roles in several films, including Let’s Be Cops (2014), Tomorrow land (2015) and Pitch Perfect 2 (2015). He appeared at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner as the character Luther, President Barack Obama’s anger translator also in 2015.
He also produced and starred in the 2016 film Keanu with his Key & Peele co-star Jordan Peele. He made his Broadway debut in Steve Martin’s comedy Meteor Shower in 2017.
Keegan attended the University of Detroit Mercy as an undergraduate, and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in theater in 1993. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in theater at Pennsylvania State University in 1996. Key was a brother of Phi Kappa Theta while at the University of Detroit Mercy.
Keegan Michael Key Age
Keegan-Michael Key was born on March 22, 1971 in Southfield, Michigan, U.S. He is 52 years
Keegan Michael Key Ethnicity
Michael belongs to a mixed ethnicity,
Keegan Michael Key Parents
Key was born to Leroy McDuffie, who was African American, and Carrie Herr, who was White. He was then adopted at a young age by an interracial couple from Detroit, Michael Key and Patricia Walsh, both social workers.
He has two half-brothers through his biological father, one of whom was the Eisner Award-nominated comic book writer Dwayne McDuffie (1962–2011), also of Detroit. Key discovered the existence of his siblings after they’d passed, he did not get a chance to meet them.
Keegan Michael Key Wife | Keegan Michael Key Married
He married actor and director Elisa Pugliese on June 8, 2018 in New York City.
Keegan Michael Key Divorce
Key married actress and dialect coach Cynthia Blaise on 27 December 1998 and divorced on 16 November 2017.
Keegan Michael Key Girlfriend
Key is a married man.
Keegan Michael Key Kids
Key has no children yet.
Keegan Michael Key Mad Tv
Keegan joined the cast of Mad TV midway into the ninth season. Key and Jordan Peele were cast against each other so that FOX could pick one black cast member. They both ended up being picked after demonstrating great comedic chemistry.
Keegan played many characters on the show. One of Key’s most famous characters is “Coach Hines”, a high school sports coach who frequently disrupts and also threatens students and faculty members.
During the penultimate episode of Mad TV, Hines revealed that he is the long-lost heir to the Heinz Ketchup company and he only became a Catholic school coach to help delinquent teenagers like Yamanashi (Bobby Lee).
During seasons 9 and 10, Keegan appeared as “Dr. Funkenstein” in Blaxploitation parodies, with Peele playing the monster. Keegan also portrayed various guests on Real **********ing Talk like the strong African Rollo Johnson and also blind victim Stevie Wonder Washington. Key often goes “backstage” as Eugene Struthers, an always-ecstatic water- or flower-delivery man who accosts celebrities.
There is also “Jovan Muskatelle”, a shirtless man with a curl and also a shower cap. Keegan interrupts live news broadcasts by a reporter (always played by Ike Barinholtz), annoying him with rapid fire accounts of events that have happened frequently exclaiming “It was crazy as hell!”
Celebrities that Keegan impersonated on the show include Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Roscoe Orman (as his character Gordon from Sesame Street), Matthew Lillard, Bill Cosby, Al Roker, Terrell Owens, Tyler Perry, Robin Antin, Keith Richards, Eddie Murphy (as his character James “Thunder” Early from the movie Dream girls), Sherman Hemsley (as his character George Jefferson on The Jeffersons), Charles Barkley, Sendhil Ramamurthy (as Mohinder Suresh), Tyson Beckford, Seal (originally played by Jordan until he left the show at the end of season 13), Sidney Poitier, Lionel Richie, Barack Obama, Kobe Bryant and Jack Haley (as the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz).
Key also played female celebrities, including Phylicia Rashād and Eva Longoria (as Gabrielle Solis on a Desperate Housewives parody).
Keegan Michael Key Jordan Peele
Keegan and his former Mad TV castmate Jordan Peele starred in their own Comedy Central sketch series Key & Peele. The series began airing on January 31, 2012 and ran for five seasons until September 9, 2015.
Keegan and his comedy partner Jordan Peele starred in an episode of Epic Rap Battles of History, with Keegan playing Mahatma Gandhi and Jordan playing Martin Luther King Jr. The duo returned to Epic Rap Battles of History with the “Muhammad Ali versus Michael Jordan” battle, with Keegan portraying Jordan.
Michael was introduced by President Barack Obama at the 2015 White House Correspondents’ Dinner as Luther, Obama’s Anger Translator, one of his characters from the show.
Keegan Michael Key Other Work
Keegan was one of the founders of Hamtramck, Michigan’s Planet Ant Theatre, and was also a member of the Second City Detroit’s main stage cast before joining the Second City e.t.c. theater in Chicago.
He co-founded the Detroit Creativity Project along with Beth Hagen locker, Marc Evan Jackson, Margaret Edwartowski, and Larry Joe Campbell. The Detroit Creativity Project then teaches students in Detroit improvisation as a way to improve their communication skills.
He performed with The 313, an improv group formed with other members of Second City Hollywood that appears around the country. The 313 is made up primarily of former Detroit residents and also named for Detroit’s area code. Keegan also hosted Animal Planet’s The Planet’s Funniest Animals.
He then made a cameo in “Weird Al” Yankovic’s video “White & Nerdy” with fellow Mad TV co-star Jordan Peele. He hosted GSN’s “Big Saturday Night” in 2009, and has co-starred in Gary Unmarried on CBS.
Keegan was a panelist on the NPR comedy quiz show Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me… on March 27 and also on July 24, 2010. Keegan has been in several episodes of Reno 911! as the “Theoretical Criminal”.
They were both featured on the cover and in a series of full-page comic photos illustrating The New York Times Magazine article “Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?” on March 31, 2013.
A live-action video version was then featured on the Times’ website. Keegan co-stars in the horror-comedy Hell Baby. He is one of the rotating “fourth chair” performers in the 2013 revival of Whose Line Is It Anyway?.
In addition to Key & Peele, Key also co-starred in the USA Network comedy series Playing House. It began airing in April 2014.
Alongside his comedy partner Jordan Peele, Keegan played an FBI agent in a recurring role in the 2014 FX crime drama Fargo.
He was involved in audio episodes for the marketing campaign, “Hunt the Truth” on the website for the video game Halo 5: Guardians, voicing a fictional journalist and also war photographer named Benjamin Giraud, who investigates the Master Chief’s background.
He has also had small supporting roles in numerous films, including 2014’s Horrible Bosses 2, Let’s Be Cops and also the animated The Lego Movie, as well as Pitch Perfect 2 and Tomorrow land in 2015. Keegan and Jordan are working with Judd Apatow on a feature-length film for Universal Pictures.
Keegan is one of several hosts of the podcast Historically Black by American Public Media and also The Washington Post.
In the summer of 2017, Keegan returned to the theatre in a production of Hamlet at New York’s Public Theater where he played Horatio opposite Oscar Isaac in the title role. Key, who is a classically trained actor, received rave reviews for his performance.
The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney noted that Key’s comedic skills were on full display, “…but his ease with the verse and stirring sensitivity a revelation.”
His voice acted in The Star, the animated film based on the Nativity of Jesus.
Keegan made his Broadway debut in Steve Martin’s comedy Meteor Shower in 2017.
Keegan Michael Key Net Worth
The Mad Tv star has an estimated net worth of $7 million.
Keegan Michael Key Height
Key stands at a height of 1.85 m.
Keegan Michael Key Gay
Key is not gay.
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