David Brenner

Early life Brenner was born to Jewish parents in 1936 and raised in South and West Philadelphia.

After high school, Brenner spent two years in the U.S. Army, serving in the 101st Airborne and as a cryptographer of the 595th Signal Corps in Böblingen, Germany. After being discharged, he attended Temple University, where he majored in mass communication and graduated with honors. His first paid gig was at The Improv in June 1969, and following that he frequently performed at clubs in Greenwich Village. He also wrote five books, and starred in four HBO Specials.

Books Brenner released the comedy album Excuse Me, Are You Reading That Paper? on MCA Records in 1983. The title arose from a gag in the album wherein a fellow passenger on a subway asked Brenner if he was reading a newspaper on which he was sitting. Brenner stood up, turned the page, sat down and said, "Well, yes I am." Brenner also penned five books

Brenner was the star of the 1976 TV series Snip, which was inspired by the film Shampoo and set in a hair dressing salon.

In 1986, King World Entertainment gave Brenner his own 30-minute syndicated late-night talk show, Nightlife, in an attempt to compete with Carson, but it was cancelled after one season. The show premiered September 8, 1986, on 102 stations and was touted as "alternative". It gave some comedians, such as Bobby Slayton, their national television premieres.

In addition to the Tonight Show, Brenner also appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, The David Frost Show, The Merv Griffin Show, The Mike Douglas Show, Late Night with David Letterman and the Late Show With David Letterman, Real Time With Bill Maher and The Daily Show and was a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show.

Radio From 1994 to 1996, Brenner hosted a talk-radio program, inheriting the 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. timeslot of the daytime Larry King Show on the Mutual Broadcasting System. He had earlier hosted a syndicated weekly radio show, David Brenner Live, for three months in 1985. The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia named Brenner their Person of the Year in 1984 and inducted him into their Hall of Fame in 2003.

Personal life Brenner had three children: Cole, Slade, and Wyatt. He and the mother of Cole, his first son, fought a custody battle for several years. Brenner finally won child custody in 1992. Because family courts would have regarded him as an absentee father if he were away from home more than 50 nights a year, Brenner substantially reduced the number of appearances in his stand-up comedy work, including performances on the Tonight Show, in order to secure and maintain custody of his son. Brenner married Elizabeth Slater of New York, the mother of his sons Slade and Wyatt, in the closing minutes of his David Brenner: Back with a Vengeance! HBO Special recorded in Las Vegas, on February 19, 2000. They divorced a little over a year later with Brenner claiming their first year of marriage was "the best year I had in my whole life ... I was the happiest man in the world" but then she grew "into this new person" and he didn't fit into her new lifestyle. They fought two custody battles, both of which Brenner won. Brenner was engaged to Tai Babilonia in 2005, but they never married.