Biography

The New York Times has included David Steinberg among a handful of the best and most creative directors working in television. He has directed many episodes of Friends, Newhart, Seinfeld, Mad About You, Designing Women, which he also executive produced and most recently the hit series Weeds and Curb Your Enthusiasm for HBO. His work on Seinfeld and Mad About You and Curb Your Enthusiam earned him several DGA and Emmy Awards and nominations.

Among the shows he is currently producing or directing are Weeds and his seventh season on Curb Your Enthusiasm. He is executive producer and creator of Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg, a one-on-one interview series shot live in front of an audience at UCLA. The first twelve shows star Larry David, Mike Myers, Martin Short, George Lopez, Bob Newhart and Jon Lovitz. Jon Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld, Robin Williams, Ray Romano, Roseanne Barr and Garry Shandling.

David Steinberg, whom The New York Times has called "a cross between Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce," is second only to Bob Hope in Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show guest appearances. He began comedy career with Second City and influenced the careers of John Belushi, Bill Murray, John Candy and others who followed himthere. From there he graduated to Broadway, starring with Elliot Gould in Jules Feiffer's Little Murders, and followed with a starring role in Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights directed by Sidney Poitier. In the early '70s David capped a prolific career as a stand up comedian with four comedy albums, two Grammy nominations, and a successful nightclub act at the Bitter End in New York that catapulted him into television both as a comedian and a writer.

In addition to his appearances on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, David is also known for the memorable parts he created on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. His "Existential Psychiatrist" first coined the popular phrase "Booga Booga!" and his satirically controversial "sermons" caused the Smothers Brothers to be thrown off the air. David also wrote and starred in The Music Scene for ABC, as well as The David Steinberg Show, which was a summer replacement hit for CBS. Returning to Canada he did a sitcom dealing with a behind the scenes look at a television show, and introduced to television John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Martin Short, Dave Thomas, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara and the group that would ultimately become known as SCTV.

Feature films that David has directed include Paternity starring Burt Reynolds, Going Berserk starring John Candy, Joe Flaherty and Eugene Levy, and The Wrong Guy starring Jennifer Tilly and Dave Foley.

As a writer, David won the Playboy Humor Award for his parody of the novel Ragtime, and an Emmy Award nomination for the television special This Is Sholem Aleichem. An accomplished director of over 300 commercials, David has also won virtually every award in advertising, including two Clio Awards and the prestigious Silver Lion Award at the Cannes International Film Festival.