Rob Schneider
Rob Schneider (born October 31, 1963) is an American actor, comedian, screenwriter and director. A stand-up comic and veteran of the NBC sketch-comedy series Saturday Night Live, Schneider went on to a career in feature films, including starring roles in the comedies Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and The Hot Chick.
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 and his mother was Catholic. Schneider’s maternal grandmother was a Filipina who met and married Schneider’s maternal grandfather, a caucasian American army private, while he was stationed in the Philippines. Schneider graduated from Terra Nova High School in 1982.
A 2005 New York Times editorial admonished, “Watch Rob Schneider play Ula, a leering Hawaiian in the Adam Sandler movie 50 First Dates, with a pidgin accent by way of Cheech and Chong, and you get the sense that Hollywood still believes that there is no ethnic caricature a white actor can’t improve upon.” In a letter to the editor, Schneider defended himself by asserting his Filipino heritage, adding that he believes that “Hollywood should give roles to the most talented person irrespective of ethnicity, race or in my case ‘looks.’”
In 2007, The Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) criticized Schneider for donning prosthetic make up to play a Japanese minister in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry by likening it to “yellow face.” Richard Roeper said in his review that “Rob Schneider’s Filipino background hardly excuses his portrayal of an Asian minister in perhaps the most egregious stereotype of its kind since Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s”
MANAA also criticized Schneider for an Asian character’s dialogue in 2005’s Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, which he co-wrote. The organization stated that the portrayal of the character “perpetuated the tired stereotype that Asian men have small penises.
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.
