Robert Michael "Rob" Schneider (born October 31, 1963) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter and director.
Schneider was born in San Francisco, California and grew up in the nearby suburb of Pacifica. He is the son of Pilar Schneider, a former kindergarten teacher and ex-school board president, and Marvin Schneider, a real estate broker. Schneider's father was a secular Jew, while his maternal grandmother was a Filipina who met and married Schneider's maternal grandfather, an American army private, while he was stationed in the Philippines. Schneider graduated from Terra Nova High School in 1982.
Schneider started his stand-up comedy career shortly after high school. The Pacifica, California native played Bay Area nightclubs such as the Holy City Zoo and the Other Cafe, and was a regular guest on local radio programs. After opening a show by comedian Dennis Miller in 1987, Schneider won a slot on HBO's 13th Annual Young Comedians special, which was hosted by Miller. Schneider's appearance on the HBO special led to a position as a writer for the late night NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live.
In Schneider's movies, the main character often undergoes some type of transformation, be it an unlikely career change, or a supernatural or science-fictional transformation. Schneider starred in The Animal, about a nebbish who is given animal powers by a mad scientist; The Hot Chick, wherein the mind of a petty thief played by Schneider is mystically switched into the body of a pretty, but mean-spirited high school cheerleader; and the sequel Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. The latter movie was not well-received by critics or moviegoers, and as a result, Schneider won a 2005 Worst Actor Razzie Award for his role in the film.
Schneider's directorial debut, the comedy Big Stan, is scheduled to be released in 2008. In the film, he stars as a con artist who is arrested for perpetrating real-estate scams. He's sentenced to prison, so he takes a crash-course in martial arts to survive incarceration.
Besides his efforts in movies and television, Schneider appeared in the music video for country singer Neil McCoy's "Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On", as the song's title character. Schneider met McCoy while the two went on a USO tour in support of U.S. troops two months after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Schneider has engaged in a number of high-profile disputes with public figures. In January 2005, film critic Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times said in an article that Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo was overlooked for an Academy Award because "nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic." Schneider responded two weeks later with full-page ads in Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, saying he had done research and found that Mr. Goldstein had never won any journalistic awards, commenting, "Maybe you didn't win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven't invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who's Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers.
In 1996, Schneider established the "Rob Schneider Music Foundation." The foundation returned music education to Pacifica's elementary schools by paying the teachers' salaries and providing funds for instruments and other equipment. Prior to Schneider's efforts, the school system had done without music education programs for many years. In keep with his keen interest in music, Schneider once owned a San Francisco nightclub, DNA Lounge.
Schneider's mother has made cameo appearances in her son's films, playing a cheerleading contest judge in The Hot Chick, a restaurant patron in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, and a nosy neighbor in The Animal.
Schneider is an environmentalist. He drives a Toyota Prius hybrid automobile, and served as host for the 13th annual Environmental Media Awards in 2004.