Brian Regan

Comedian Brian Regan enjoyed widespread critical praise, the hard-won respect of his fellow stand-ups, and a diehard fanbase purely through live performances, without the benefit of a hit television series or feature film.

That Regan remained so popular for such a lengthy period - he rose to popularity in the early 1990s and reached the top of the club and theater circuit a decade later - was made all the more impressive by the fact that he worked "clean," which is to say that his material was entirely free of objectionable language and subject matter.

Maintaining that stance - a personal decision rather than one generated to attract audiences - over such a long period of time required near-Herculean discipline and imagination, which helped to make him something of a "comic's comic" in stand-up circles. If the praise and popularity had any effect on Brian Regan, he appeared oblivious to it, preferring instead to devote his energies to one of the hardest-working and most popular stand-up careers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Born Brian Joseph Regan in Miami, Florida on June 2, 1958, he was one of seven siblings, including his brother, Dennis Regan, who also pursued a career in comedy as a stand-up and writer on "The King of Queens" (CBS 1998-2007).

From an early age, Brian Regan was drawn to comic performers like Steve Martin, The Smothers Brothers and Johnny Carson, all of whom hinged their particular brands of humor on the sort of witty, sometimes absurd observations that marked his own work as a stand-up. But he did not pursue a performing career until his final year at Heidelberg College in Ohio, where he was studying to become an accountant.

There, a football coach suggested that Regan try his hand at theater and communications, which eventually became his primary focus and eventually spurred him to drop out of Heidelberg in his final semester to try his hand at stand-up comedy.

After returning to Florida, Regan began performing regularly at the Comic Strip club in Fort Lauderdale while also supporting himself as a cook and dishwasher there. After honing his material for a period of five years, Regan headed for New York in 1986 and quickly established himself as a rising star on the city's comedy scene.

Two years after his arrival, he was named "Funniest Person in New York" by an area radio station and made his television debut on the short-lived "Pat Sajak Show" (CBS 1989-1990) in 1989. By the early '90s, Regan was a staple of both the comedy touring circuit and late night television, where he earned the respect of critics, audiences and fellow comics alike with his observant and decidedly clean material.

He was twice named Best Club Comic by the American Comedy Awards in 1995 and 1996, and released his first album, Brian Regan Live, the following year. Regan's fanbase soon allowed him to move up from club dates to larger theaters, and prompted his first DVD release, the self-released I Walked On the Moon, in 2004.

Three years later, Regan signed a deal with Comedy Central to film two one-hour specials: "Standing Up," which debuted in 2004 and "The Epitome of Hyperbole" (2008), both of which also became popular DVD releases. His second comedy album, All By Myself, debuted in 2010.