Eddie Izzard

Eddie Izzard, the British comedian and actor, blends playful and pointed observational humor in a fluid manner, frequently incorporating surreal imagery within a stream-of-consciousness delivery. An overachiever across multiple arenas, she has delivered standup routines in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic while completing well over 100 marathons, many on consecutive days as part of fundraising events. Following the 1993 release of her initial comedy video, Live at the Ambassadors, which marked her West End debut, she toured and recorded comedy classics including the Billboard comedy chart-topping Glorious from 1997 and the two-time Emmy winner Dress to Kill from 1998. During the same period she appeared in films such as Velvet Goldmine in 1998, Mystery Men in 1999, and Ocean's Twelve in 2004, and she captured the Drama Desk Award for her acting in the 2003 Broadway production of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. Her tenth comedy album, Force Majeure from 2013, was backed by a tour spanning 45 countries and all 50 United States. Harvard presented her with an Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism in 2013. The memoir Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death and Jazz Chickens appeared in print in 2017. Identifying as genderfluid and preferring feminine pronouns, she supplied the voice of Voldemort in The Lego Batman Movie in 2017 and held brief office as a Labour Party member in 2018. She continued acting with a starring role in the 2020 war film Six Minutes to Midnight. In 2021, Izzard remained in London and completed 31 treadmill marathons paired with 31 standup shows across 31 days to support multiple charities.

Born in 1962 to an accountant and a nurse, Izzard passed her infancy in Aden Colony, later known as Aden, Yemen. The family relocated to Bangor, Ireland in 1963, remained there four years, and then moved once more to Skewen, Wales. When Izzard was six her mother died of cancer, after which she and her older brother were sent promptly to boarding school. These experiences ultimately molded her comedic persona.

At age seven Izzard attended a play and developed an interest in acting. Also drawn to the writing side of the craft, she gravitated toward comedy as a performance outlet after struggling to secure roles in school productions. In 1980 she enrolled at Sheffield University to pursue an Accounting and Financial Management with Mathematics degree, yet comedy remained her driving passion. Over the following year and a half she wrote and performed in assorted university comedy productions, among them a featured slot at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. By early 1984 Izzard had departed college, settled in London, and begun staging street shows alongside friend Rob Ballard in Covent Garden.

Within three years she had become a fixture on the London club circuit and made her Comedy Store debut. Popularity increased further after she appeared on a televised AIDS benefit in 1991. Her debut comedy special, Live at the Ambassadors from 1993, was drawn from three performances during a four-month West End engagement. The following year brought a lead role in David Mamet's stage drama The Cryptogram as well as a second comedy special, Unrepeatable. In 1995 she took the title role in Marlowe's Edward II on stage, and 1996 saw the release of Definite Article, her third standup show, recorded at Camden's Shaftesbury Theatre. By then she had accumulated several parts in television movies and short films and made her feature-film debut in the star-studded spy thriller The Secret Agent. Another special, Glorious, appeared in 1997. She followed its success with acting roles in Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine and the British spy film The Avengers in 1998.

Izzard achieved a critical breakthrough in the United States with the 1998 HBO comedy special Dress to Kill, which later earned Emmy Awards for Outstanding Writing in a Variety, Music, or Comedy Program and Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Comedy Program. The set featured the well-known "cake or death" sketch. Subsequent movie roles included Tony P. in Mystery Men in 1999 and a portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in Peter Bogdanovich's The Cat's Meow in 2001, before she returned with her sixth standup special, Circle from 2002, a production that sold out theaters nationwide. That same year Anti/Epitaph issued a U.S. DVD of Dress to Kill, marking Izzard's first domestic video release. Sexie, another special, arrived in 2003, recorded in her father's hometown of Eastbourne. That year she also performed on Broadway in Peter Nichols' A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, earning a Tony nomination for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.

In late 2004 simultaneous catalog reissues of Unrepeatable, Definite Article, and Glorious from Laughing Stock Records placed three titles inside the Top Ten of Billboard's Comedy Albums chart, with Glorious reaching number one. She also took a supporting role that year in Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Twelve, returning for Ocean's Thirteen in 2007. On television in 2007 she co-starred with Minnie Driver in the FX series The Riches, which was renewed for a second season in 2008. Six years after her prior special, Izzard released Stripped on Laughing Stock in 2009.

With minimal running experience and only five weeks of preparation, she launched seven weeks of consecutive marathons, resting Sundays, in July 2009 to benefit Comic Relief's Sport Relief fundraiser. The athletic and promotional endeavor succeeded, and she participated in comparable charity events in subsequent years. The early 2011 release of her next comedy recording, Live at Madison Square Garden on Largo/Epitaph, preceded television appearances on United States of Tara and Bullet in the Face as well as a voice role as Sir Miles Axelrod in Disney-Pixar's Cars 2. In 2013 she established a recurring character on NBC's Hannibal and issued her tenth standup special, Force Majeure on Laughing Stock. That tour traversed five continents and featured select venues where she performed three consecutive shows, each in a different language—English, French, and German. The itinerary reached its 50th state with a 2017 performance in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In 2017 theater audiences heard Izzard voice Voldemort in The Lego Batman Movie. That June, Michael Joseph in the United Kingdom and Blue Rider Press in the United States published her memoir, Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death and Jazz Chickens. After unsuccessful campaigns for a seat on the Labour Party's National Executive Committee, she served briefly in 2018 as runner-up to Christine Shawcroft following the latter's resignation.

Izzard supplied a voice for the Netflix animated series Green Eggs and Ham in 2019 and held a supporting part in the 2020 film The High Note before taking a lead role that year in Six Minutes to Midnight opposite Judi Dench. In January 2021 she completed 31 marathons on a treadmill, necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, across an equal number of days while delivering daily online comedy performances, raising funds for several charitable organizations.