Grammy nominee, stand-up comedian, Amazon's Gravesend, Hulu's Pam & Tommy
To one particular generation when one hears the name Andrew Dice Clay, images of American’s controversial comedian of all time immediately comes to mind.
But today when people hear the name Andrew Dice Clay, they think of a brilliant actor who has won critical acclaim for his recent roles directed by the likes of Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese and Bradley Cooper.
And who continues to win over the critics with his role of ‘Rinaldo’ in the Brooklyn based Amazon crime series “Gravesend.” Praise will surely follow Clay with his next role as Butchie, a matter-of-fact mob guy in Hulu’s forth-coming limited series Pam & Tommy, based on the true story behind the release of the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape.
Clay’s story is the ultimate comeback story that started a decade ago when in 2011, Doug Ellin cast Dice in a re-occurring role as a fictional version of himself in the eighth and final season of HBO’s Entourage. And from there, there was no stopping Clay.
Next up was Dice’s return to stand-up on cable television with his Showtime special titled Indestructible which was the channel’s highest rated comedy special in more than a decade.
Even with all the success of Indestructible, it was the acting roles that kept coming for Clay. First up was Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine where he played Augie opposite Sally Hawkins in a role that much of the press called, “One of the year’s most devastating and honest performances.”
From there, Clay had an extremely memorable role as the cocaine-crazed radio station mogul Frank “Buck” Rogers in the Martin Scorsese/Mick Jagger-produced television series Vinyl for HBO. Once again, Clay’s performance showed an acting range many thought he didn't possess and was favorite of all the critics.
The rebirth of Andrew Dice Clay continued with the Showtime series Dice where Clay once again portrayed a fictional version of his “Dice” character who is desperately trying to reclaim his old glory.
In 2018, Clay portrayed Lady Gaga's father in the Bradley Cooper directed and Oscar nominated Best Picture A Star is Born. It should be noted that Clay beat out such several high-profile actors for the part, including Robert De Niro, John Turturro, and John Travolta, and once again, his performance went on to receive rave reviews from the critics.
One cannot ignore Clay’s mega career success as "The Diceman" where he in 1990, he became the first stand-up comedian to sell out Madison Square Garden for two consecutive nights. Clay proudly likes to say, “We did so many sold-out arena tours that we could not come up with the names fast enough and probably sold more than 12 million tickets.”
The birth of the “Diceman” can be credited to his seven-minute set on Rodney Dangerfield's HBO stand-up showcase special titled Nothing Goes Right. The next day, Dice was literally launched into the national spotlight.
What followed next is staggering – the release of his debut comedy album Dice, which went on to reach Gold certification, a three-minute set of filthy Mother Goose nursery rhymes at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards which led to MTV imposing a lifetime ban on Clay from appearing on the network, an HBO Special and the release of the cult classic film The Adventures Of Ford Fairlaine.
From there it was the release of Dice’s largely improvised, second album, The Day the Laughter Died, produced by Rick Rubin, the hosting of Saturday Night Live where Nora Dunn & Sinead O'Connor refused to appear on the show with him, gracing the cover of Penthouse, where he became the second male to front the magazine and then the release of the stand-up concert film Dice Rules taken from Clay’s shows at Madison Square Garden.
The rest of the epic journey of Andrew Dice Clay including being the first celebrity to be fired by Donald Trump on season 2 of Celebrity Apprentice can be found in his Simon & Schuster appropriately called memoir The Filthy Truth.