Dennis Michael Miller (born November 3, 1953) is an American political commentator, stand-up comedian, talk show host, writer, actor and former sportscaster.

Miller was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1985 to 1991, and he subsequently hosted a string of his own talk shows on HBO, CNBC, and also in syndication. From 2007 to 2015, Miller hosted a daily, three-hour, self-titled talk radio program, nationally syndicated by Westwood One. He was ranked as the best host of SNLs Weekend Update by Vulture.

Early life

Miller was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in the suburb of Castle Shannon. He is of Scottish descent. Miller's parents separated and he was raised by his mother, Norma who was a dietitian at a Baptist nursing home. Miller is reluctant to speak about his father, usually just saying he "moved on when I was very young." Two other early influences were Jonathan Winters and Tim Conway.

Miller went to Keystone Oaks High School. At Keystone Oaks, Miller was a member of the Physical Fitness Club, and in his senior year he worked on the Keynote newspaper and served on the student council, but lost his bid for senior class president. Miller likened his social status at this period as being lower than Booger of Revenge of the Nerds. Miller majored in journalism. In the fall of his senior year at the university, he began writing for the South Hills Record, mixing humor into his sports reporting. When the paper changed its payment structure to pay around an eighth of a penny per column inch, he quit. Miller later said that at the time he feared that if he stayed in such jobs, his life would become a Franz Kafka novella, and it stiffened his resolve to start pursuing a comedy career. When he finally made his début at the Oak's Lounge on Sleepy Hollow Road in Castle Shannon, most of Miller's family was in the audience to cheer him on.

He began appearing onstage at the Oak's Lounge in Castle Shannon while working at the Giant Eagle deli in Kennedy.

Miller gained more exposure when he tried out for the New York Laff-Off Contest. The contest had 40 slots but 32 of them had already been filled by the top regulars who appeared at the three comedy venues sponsoring the competition. Many of the 350 comedians Miller was up against had hours of crafted material, while he had fine-tuned around ten minutes. To his surprise and delight, Miller earned one of the remaining slots. For the competition itself he appeared at the Improv and received a standing ovation, moving him on to the finals. While he lost the Laff-Off, he was seen by dozens of talent agents, resulting in bookings at colleges and other clubs.

During performances at comedy clubs in Pittsburgh, Miller befriended Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld. In 1984 Leno found Miller an apartment in Los Angeles and he and Seinfeld arranged a debut for Miller at The Improv.

Saturday Night Live

Audition

In 1985, Miller was discovered by Lorne Michaels at The Comedy Store. Miller subsequently auditioned for SNL in Los Angeles, and did well enough for a second audition at Times Square in New York. About 70 people watched this second audition—this was most of the show's staff along with Lorne Michaels, Paul Simon, and Dan Aykroyd. Miller walked into a well-lit room and was told "Go ahead, you have eight minutes, Dennis." His comedy was apolitical before SNL but politics came easy through opening a newspaper and building a new act around a few headlines. He made his stage persona a bit sardonic, as he noticed people who had done the Weekend Update segment as nice guys quickly lost the role.

Miller began his fictional news reports with "Good evening, and what can I tell ya?" and closed with "Guess what, folks? That's the news, and I... am... outta here!" Fans of SNL became accustomed to his snarky delivery, high-pitched giggle, and frequently primped hair—idiosyncrasies that were spoofed by Dana Carvey, Tom Hanks, and Jimmy Fallon, all of whom have impersonated Miller on the show.

During his time at SNL, Miller released a stand-up comedy album, The Off-White Album in 1988. It drew heavily from the observational and metaphor-driven style he was known for on the show, and showed glimpses of the political humor that influenced his later work. An HBO special, Dennis Miller: Black and White, aired shortly after the release of the CD.

Although Miller spent much of his time on SNL behind the Weekend Update desk, he was included in some sketches. He did a few recurring characters as well as celebrity impersonations including Gary Hart, George Harrison, and Nathaniel Crosby.

Leaving SNL

It was thought that he would renew his contract with NBC until at least 1993, but Miller left SNL in 1991, after six years, turning over the anchor's chair to Kevin Nealon.

Miller was happy with his role on the show, but chose to move on because he had turned 38 and his 18-month-old son Holden made him want to strive for things to "make the boy proud." He told an interviewer, "I had a great gig and this came up. It seemed like an opportunity that doesn't present itself too frequently in your life, so I opted to take it... I wanted to see what other talents I had, so I decided this was the shot." He later told an interviewer that he would have loved to be there, but could not due to family commitments. Miller also declined to appear at the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special.

Eponymous shows

The Dennis Miller Show

After it was announced that Miller would start his own show, he was a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Carson offered him some advice while reflecting on his own 30-year career from which he was retiring in May 1992. The Dennis Miller Show failed to build a significant audience and was cancelled in July.

Dennis Miller Live

Beginning in 1994, Miller hosted Dennis Miller Live, a half-hour talk show on HBO. The show was taped at CBS Television City on the same stage where The Price Is Right is taped. It utilized a small set, sparse lighting, no band and Miller speaking to the largely-unseen studio audience from a darkened stage.

Miller usually hosted one guest per show, with whom he discussed the topic of the day. Early on, guests were all interviewed live via satellite, but soon most appeared live in the studio. Miller and his writing staff won five Emmy Awards during the show's run, which aired 215 episodes over nine years. HBO cancelled the show in 2002.

CNBC show

Background

Miller was considered for a prime-time talk show at MSNBC in 2002 as well as a regular commentator on the Fox News show Hannity & Colmes in 2003 before landing a prime-time political show weeknights on CNBC, simply called Dennis Miller. It began airing on January 26, 2004, in the 9:00 p.m. (ET) slot, which placed him against Hannity & Colmes.

CNBC announced that they were "comfortable with an unabashed Bush fan in the middle of its prime-time schedule in an election year." After a few appearances Ellie was replaced by a smaller, friendlier chimp named Mo. CNBC canceled the show in May 2005 as part of the network's move to refocus on financial news (airings of Late Night with Conan O'Brien and shows hosted by John McEnroe and Tina Brown were also cancelled). The program debuted on March 26, 2007, and ran through February 27, 2015. A few months into his radio show, Miller noted that his radio show best represented his actual unvarnished views, saying "This time, if I'm fired, they will be firing the real Dennis Miller."

The show's website provided a live stream of the broadcast, which was free, but a subscription to the Dennis Miller Zone (DMZ) was required in order to access archived broadcasts. The show aired on 250+ stations, airing on tape delay on some of those stations between 6–9 pm ET and 9 pm-12 am ET. His on-air sidekick "Salman" (David S. Weiss) also wrote for Dennis Miller Live. His producer Christian Bladt previously appeared on-camera as dozens of different characters during the "Daily Rorschach" segment on his CNBC television show.

Miller's program included serious discussions about American culture, current events, politics, and their place in the global context. The show was infused with Miller's sarcasm and obscure pop culture references. The first hour's opening phrase was a combination of dialogue from the film Thank You for Smoking and a U.S. space program slogan coined by Alan Shepard: "What's up, Hiroshi? Let's light this candle!" Miller's opening phrases for his second and third hours respectively were "Come to me my babies, let me quell your pain", (Powers Boothe as Jim Jones in Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones) and "ABC – Always be closing if you want the knife set" (from Glengarry Glen Ross).

Most shows featured three guests (one per hour) as well as calls from listeners. Guests included fellow comedians and SNL alumni, pundits and authors, Presidential candidates, and sports commentators. Regulars included columnists and conservatives such as Debra Saunders, Charles Krauthammer, Victor Davis Hanson, John Bolton, Bill Kristol, and Jerome Corsi.

According to Talkers Magazine, as of spring 2011, Miller's show had an estimated 2,250,000 weekly listeners. Miller and Dial Global signed an agreement in early 2012 to continue his show for three years. Miller ended the radio show after his contract expired on March 27, 2015.

Dennis Miller + One

Miller hosted Dennis Miller + One, on RT America, a channel funded by the Russian government, from March 9, 2020, until early 2022. The half-hour program was produced by Ora TV and aired twice weekly, featuring interviews with sports and entertainment celebrities. In line with the name of the show, Miller interviewed a single guest for the entire half hour. The show replaced Larry King Now, on which Miller had been a frequent guest host until King's death in February 2021. In February 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, citing an unnamed source "familiar with [Miller's] thinking", NBC News reported that Miller has no plans to continue the show; shortly thereafter, in March, RT withdrew from the American market.

Recent activity

In 2018, Miller taped his ninth stand-up Fake News, Real Jokes. It was produced by Comedy Dynamics and streamed on Amazon, Apple, and Google Play.

On April 25, 2018, Miller began hosting a weekly podcast, The Dennis Miller Option on Podcast One (in 2019 it moved to Westwood One), but discontinued it on December 15, 2020, shortly after the election of Joe Biden, saying he was disgusted with politics and uninterested in continuing as a pundit.

Miller also hosted The Miller Minute, a twice-daily 60-second radio commentary on the day's events syndicated by Westwood One from 2018 until 2020.

In 2024, Miller came out of semi-retirement to host The Infomercials That Sold Us, a three-part docuseries on Fox Nation that provided “a nostalgic and poignant look back at the years when infomercials ruled late-night TV".

Other endeavors

Miller hosted the MTV Video Music Awards in 1995 and 1996. He was also the host of HBO's 1996 series of election specials, Not Necessarily the Election.

He has appeared in various television commercials, serving as a spokesman for M&M's candies, 10-10-220 long-distance service, Miller beer, and the Internet service provider NetZero. About these activities he has remarked: "Everybody has to sell out at some point to make a living."

Monday Night Football

Background

In June 2000, Miller auditioned as an announcer for ABC's Monday Night Football, a program which was struggling with declining ratings at the time and needed a new announcer after the firing of Boomer Esiason. ABC Sports President Howard Katz told The Associated Press that he approved of trying something new with the show and taking a risk. The Los Angeles Times called Miller's hiring "one of the boldest moves in sports television history." Miller told reporters that he would not try to dominate the show and insisted that his role would not be that of a comedian. Miller stated, "I'm going to try to stay in the background and ask questions a fan would ask. The rants are my HBO show and I won't try to recreate that." The show's official season opener was on September 4, 2000, with the Denver Broncos at the defending Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams. As the ratings did not improve, writers from Newsweek and USA Today began openly calling for Miller to be let go. A common Miller-ism was after a Hail Mary pass fell incomplete, he would say "Hail Mary is denied—separation of church and state." He also once referred to "The Greatest Show on Turf"—the St. Louis Rams offense—as the "Murderer's Row of Haste." Online options arose to offer definitions to references made by Miller on Monday Night Football: a website called "Dennis Miller Demystified," Encyclopædia Britannicas "Annotated Dennis Miller," and the Shadowpack (a "content aggregator, formatter, and e-commerce app") giving real-time explanations on personal digital assistant. Miller stated he was flattered by such attention.

Leaving MNF

Although Miller signed a contract for a third year, ABC soon began negotiations with veteran football commentator John Madden. Madden had worked at Fox Sports for eight years since the network had won the contract for the NFC Conference games away from CBS in 1994. Since getting the NFL contract, Fox had lost $4.4 billion and was looking to cut programming costs. Madden's contract for the next year would cost Fox $8 million so, when ABC was approaching Madden, Fox agreed to let him out of his remaining year. while Awful Announcing put him at No. 1 in their list of the Top 10 Sports Media Busts.

Fox News, game shows, and Sports Unfiltered

Miller frequently guested on Fox News in the late 2000s. He appeared on 13 of the 17 aired episodes of the comedy show The 1/2 Hour News Hour in 2007. He had a weekly segment called "Miller Time" on The O'Reilly Factor, and has also appeared on Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld.

Miller briefly co-hosted the game show Grand Slam, which aired on GSN for eight episodes in 2007. For one month, Miller hosted Amne$ia for NBC. The show was a replacement program commissioned during the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike and was canceled once the strike was resolved and scripted programming returned to the network.

In November 2007, Versus tapped Miller to host Sports Unfiltered, a weekly one-hour sports talk show. It was canceled after eight episodes.

Comedic style

For the first year and a half of his comedy career, Miller relied heavily on props, but he felt this limited him and switched to using purely language. a former model from Vancouver, British Columbia on April 24, 1988. Espley is best known as the girl in Kajagoogoo's 1983 "Too Shy" music video. The couple live in Santa Barbara and have two sons who were born in 1990 and 1993.

Political views

Although in his early years of fame he was perceived as staunch liberal and an outspoken critic of Republicans, in recent years Miller has become known for his neoconservative political opinions.

Early outlook

When asked if his political outlook was a result of early influence by his parents, Miller told a reporter "I didn't know my dad—he moved out early. And my mom's politics were kind of hardscrabble. She didn't think about Democrats or Republicans. She thought about who made sense. I've been both in my life. Somebody can say they don't understand why somebody drifts. But I've always found people who drift interesting, 'cause it shows me the game's not stagnant in their own head. They're thinking." Miller also declared himself a "conservative libertarian" in a 1996 Playboy interview.

Post September 11 attacks

Following the September 11 attacks, Miller's political ideology changed significantly and his conservative views became more publicly known. His move from the Democratic to the Republican Party was further facilitated by watching a 2004 presidential primary debate between nine Democrats. "I haven't seen a starting nine like that since the '62 Mets," he remarked. The perceived change did not surprise former SNL colleague and former Democratic Party Senator Al Franken, who noted Miller had always had a "conservative streak." In another interview Franken stated, "Dennis was always sort of conservative on certain kinds of issues. I am not quite sure why he decided to become a comedian with a dog in the fight, but as a comedian with a dog in the fight I sympathize with him."

His political outspokenness led him to become one of the few Hollywood celebrities backing George W. Bush and the war in Iraq. That same year, The National Review wrote, "Conservatives ... have welcomed and even cheered the comedian's unabashed patriotism and endorsement of President Bush's foreign—and, in certain cases, domestic—policy."

While he was not at all shy about expressing his conservative views on topics such as taxes and foreign policy, Miller was quick to point out that he is quite liberal on many social issues.

In 2007, Miller admitted that his open conservatism may have cost him some passing acquaintances, but it has not affected "my dear friends. I certainly hope our friendship runs deeper than that. I still have some ultra-liberal friends." In a 2012 interview, Miller showed no concern over whether his political stance had made him less popular or robbed him of the credit of popularizing comedic rants, saying, "I'm a 58-year-old man and I'm happy where I'm at. I don't think about any of that. I go on O'Reilly once a week, I do my radio show and I go on the road about 20 dates a year... If you're 58 and you're still worrying about whether you're popular, what are you, in eighth grade?" In January 2001 on his HBO series, Miller joked, "Condoleezza Rice has often been described as W's 'foreign policy tutor.' Oh, yeah, I love the sound of that. It's nice to know we're signing our nuclear arsenal over to a man who needs after-school help."

After 9/11, Miller's opinion on Bush changed significantly. In 2003, Miller told an interviewer that he was impressed by Bush for pursuing "the liquidation of terrorism," even though "that's not gonna be finished in his lifetime... But to take the first step? Ballsy." Miller later reflected in a 2008 interview: "I thought it was so integral that he got re-elected that I laid off him for awhile." The Weekly Standards Bill Whalen saw that, with the ascent of Schwarzenegger, other celebrities were considering political careers (such as Republican Kelsey Grammer). Examining Miller's chances for the Senate seat the Standard pointed out that it was "hard to imagine a candidate quicker on the draw or more withering in a debate" and noted other Republican celebrities successfully made the transition to elected politician because they "embodied optimism." Miller, the Standard proclaimed, was seen in contrast as "both terribly erudite... and decidedly yuppie (the comedian endorses DirecTV and Amstel Light...) Not to mention a little too edgy for some Republicans."

Miller, invoking his pleasant home life in Santa Barbara with his wife and two children, later told The New York Times, "They inquired about my availability to run against Barbara Boxer, but I'm not at the point where I would consider it." He told the Associated Press, "Maybe when I get older I would think about it, just as a lark, view it as its own form of a TV show. I think it would be fun to get in there and turn out the whole process—just refuse to play, and don't budge. Get rid of me if you want, but I'm just going to do what I want."

In 1992, Miller, who had endorsed the candidacy of Jerry Brown during the Democratic primaries, moved his support to Independent candidate Ross Perot. Miller volunteered for Ross Perot's candidacy at his San Fernando Valley campaign office. Miller told a reporter, "I don't know that you need to know that much about him. He's an outsider, and the two-party system is going to hell." Miller stated that he had become "really grossed out by the system after observing the behavior of politicians in both parties during the confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas. When Ross Perot dropped out of the Presidential race on July 16, 1992, saying he feared a conspiracy against his family, many began to joke about his sanity. On July 30, 1995, Miller told a reporter, "I'd vote for him [Perot] tomorrow. I don't think he's a genius but I love the thought of him at State Dinners mistaking the Queen of Denmark for Kaye Ballard. People say to me, 'You wouldn't want Ross Perot with his finger on the button.' But believe me, they would never let Ross Perot near the real button. They would rig up a stunt button for him, and if he ever pressed it, it would squirt him in the face with milk or something."

In 1995, considering the candidates for president, Miller told a reporter, "I don't respect Bill Clinton. He's the same as [George H. W.] Bush or [[Bob Dole|[Bob] Dole]]. Clinton's my age, and I know how full of shit I am. So I look at him and think, 'I know you. You're the guy who used to tap the keg.'"

On February 21, 2007, while appearing as a guest on The O'Reilly Factor, and again on May 25, 2007, while appearing as a guest on The Tonight Show, Miller stated that he initially supported Rudy Giuliani for President in 2008. After Giuliani's departure from the race he redirected his support to John McCain. Miller said that he gave Barack Obama six to eight months before forming an opinion on him, because he saw that his election was inspiring to black youth and hoped it would be healing. He came to the conclusion that Obama was mostly hype, and in actuality, "He's an inept civil servant who stinks."

Miller endorsed Herman Cain in the 2012 Republican primary, but later dropped his support, saying of Cain, "He can't win!" He later campaigned for Mitt Romney in the general election. After the Presidential election of 2012, Miller appeared on Fox News and said that under Obama, the US is on the road to the "European model".

In 2016, Miller did not endorse any particular Republican primary candidate. By December 16, 2015, he told Bill O'Reilly, "I would vote for any of them over Hillary, except for Lindsey Graham... and Pataki." Miller became a strong supporter of Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. general election, addressing a tweet to Republicans who were uncertain after Trump wrapped up the nomination: "Don't kid yourself. At this point, any vote for anyone that is not Donald Trump is a vote for Hillary Clinton. Also, both Presidential boxes left blank is a vote for Hillary Clinton because, as mindless as Liberals can be, even they don't enter into suicide pacts with that petulant, whiny part of themselves."

Media

Film

  • Madhouse (1990) – Wes
  • Disclosure (1994) – Mark Lewyn
  • The Net (1995) – Dr. Alan Champion
  • Never Talk to Strangers (1995) – Cliff Raddison
  • Bordello of Blood (1996) – Rafe Guttman
  • Murder at 1600 (1997) – Detective Steve Stengel
  • Joe Dirt (2001) – Zander Kelly
  • Thank You for Smoking (2005) – himself
  • What Happens in Vegas (2008) – Judge Whopper
  • The Campaign (2012) – himself
  • Joe Dirt 2 (2015) – Zander Kelly

TV shows

  • MTV Movie Awards (1992) - himself/host
  • The Dennis Miller Show (1992) - himself
  • Dennis Miller Live (1994- 2002) - himself
  • Space Ghost Coast to Coast (2003) – himself
  • Boston Public (2003) – Charlie Bixby
  • House of Cards (2013) – himself

Video games

  • You Don't Know Jack Volume 2 (1996) - Himself

Comedy specials

  • Mr. Miller Goes to Washington (1988)
  • The 13th Annual Young Comedians Special (1989) (host)
  • The Earth Day Special (1990)
  • Black & White (1990)
  • Live from Washington, D.C.: They Shoot HBO Specials, Don't They? (1993)
  • State of the Union Undressed (1995)
  • Citizen Arcane (1996)
  • The Millennium Special: 1,000 Years, 100 Laughs, 10 Really Good Ones (1999)
  • The Raw Feed (2003)
  • Dennis Miller: All In (2006)
  • The Big Speech (2010)
  • America 180 (2014)
  • Fake News, Real Jokes (2018)

Audio

  • The Off-White Album (Warner Records, 1988)
  • The Rants (Random House Audio, 1996)
  • Ranting Again (Random House Audio, 1998)
  • Rants Redux (Random House Audio, 1999)
  • I Rant, Therefore I Am (Random House Audio, 2000)
  • The Rant Zone: An All-Out Blitz Against Soul-Sucking Jobs, Twisted Child Stars, Holistic Loons, and People Who Eat Their Dogs! (HarperAudio, 2001)
  • Still Ranting After All These Years (HarperAudio, 2004)
  • America 180 (New Wave Dynamics 2014)

Print

  • The Rants (Doubleday, 1996)
  • Ranting Again (Doubleday, 1999)
  • I Rant, Therefore I Am (Doubleday, 2000)
  • The Rant Zone: An All-Out Blitz Against Soul-Sucking Jobs, Twisted Child Stars, Holistic Loons, and People Who Eat Their Dogs! (HarperCollins, 2001)

References

  • Annotated Dennis Miller Archive
  • Real Detroit Weekly Interview