Whitney Cummings

Sexually charged jokes, riffs on dysfunctional relationships, and her honest take on being a single girl in a marriage-obsessed society were just some of the raw material that launched Whitney Cummings' stand-up career. The Ivy League graduate started making a splash on the comedy circuit around 2004, when she performed back-to-back shows in popular clubs in the Los Angeles area. Cummings then made inroads on television with regular appearances on shows such as "Punk'd" (MTV, 2003-07) and the hit late-night gab fest "Chelsea Lately" (E!, 2007-14), where she gave feisty commentary on pop culture alongside host Chelsea Handler.

Cummings finally became a household name as a regular roaster on Comedy Central's widely popular celebrity roasts. The razor-sharp comic slammed everyone from Joan Rivers, David Hasselhoff, and Donald Trump, and hurled a barrage of insults at fellow roasters like Greg Giraldo and Bob Saget.

In 2011, Cummings received the chance of a lifetime by headlining her own sitcom "Whitney" (NBC, 2011-13), a show that exposed her talents to a more mainstream audience and established her as one of the most dynamic and original comedic actresses of her generation.

Born on Sept. 4, 1982, Whitney Cummings grew up in the Washington, D.C. area. The future comedienne worked as a model in high school to help pay for her college education at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where she graduated magna cum laude with a degree in communications and film in 2004.

Shortly after graduation, Cummings made the inevitable move to Los Angeles to pursue stand-up comedy. To establish herself in the business, she reportedly endured an exhaustive regimen of booking multiple gigs a night at separate Los Angeles-area clubs, followed by morning auditions. Cummings also took on mainstream projects, such as being one of the regular pranksters on the popular reality TV show "Punk'd," a hidden-camera show where creator and star Ashton Kutcher and his crew of jokers play pranks on celebrities.

Her brazen yet painfully hilarious views on dating, sex and celebrities also made Cummings a favorite to appear in documentaries like "VH1 News Presents: Plastic Surgery Obsession" (VH1, 2005) and to host "Sundance Film Festival Dailies" (Sundance Channel, 2003-05), where she regularly disarmed people with her seemingly innocent yet edgy take on films and actors.

By the late-2000s, Cummings' career gained more steam as one of the comedians in regular rotation on the hit series "Chelsea Lately," a late-night talk show hosted by comedian Chelsea Handler. Cummings frequently joined the equally bawdy Handler and two other comedians at the round table in a no-holds-barred discussion on pop culture and show business.

In 2008, Cummings' talent was further exposed on "The Tony Rock Project" (MyNetworkTV, 2008-09), a sketch-comedy series featuring Tony Rock, the brother of comedian Chris Rock, that combined street interviews and hidden-camera segments.

That same year, Cummings appeared in her first high-profile film role in "Made of Honor," about a confirmed bachelor (Patrick Dempsey) who finds himself suddenly in love with his newly-engaged best friend (Michelle Monaghan), who also asks him to be her maid of honor. Cummings played the bride-to-be's sassy best friend in the film.

Beginning with the roast of comedy icon Joan Rivers in 2009, Cummings became a staple on Comedy Central's widely anticipated celebrity roasts. She stole the show at the 2010 roast of David Hasselhoff, with her lacerating digs about the actor's man-parts and seeming obsession with self-tanners. Following her appearance on that roast, Cummings received glowing praise for her first hour-long stand-up special "Whitney Cummings: Money Shot" (Comedy Central, 2010), where she delivered her own risqué take on the differences between the sexes while in a relationship.

Unlike other stand-ups who gave the same boring "us vs. them" riff on this well-covered topic, Cummings was just as critical of women as she was of men. Cummings never lost steam when Comedy Central invited her back to the latest celeb recipient, Donald Trump.

In spite of the spirit of the roasts, Cummings often raised eyebrows with jokes that even she later claimed might have gone overboard, such as calling Hasselhoff's daughters "whores," even after the actor requested she not reference them during her act. In 2011, Cummings made the transition from celebrity roaster to leading lady on her very own sitcom "Whitney," about a happily unmarried couple.

Her eponymous character was on an eternal quest to keep the relationship exciting, so she conjured up silly ideas, like donning a sexy nurse outfit to seduce her boyfriend (Chris D'Elia), that would usually end up backfiring.