Janeane Garofalo's Biography

Janeane Garofalo was born on 28 September 1964 in Newton, New Jersey.

Whilst a student, Janeane Garofalo won a comedy talent contest and the title, funniest person in Rhode Island.

After graduating in history, Janeane Garofalo pursued a career in stand-up comedy, but also took odd jobs to support herself.

In 1989, she moved to Los Angeles.

One of Garofalo's most important life events was meeting Ben Stiller. She shared a couple of projects with him, including the sketch show, The Ben Stiller Show.

Garofalo joined a couple of heavy-hitting TV shows in the early to middle 1990s: Saturday Night Live and Michael Moore's TV Nation.

Later on, like Michael Moore, Garofalo would take an active stance against the war in Iraq.

No stranger to speaking her mind, USA Today explained her early departure from Saturday Night Live due to falling out with producer Lorne Michaels and publicly criticising the humour of Adam Sandler as childish.

One of the most notable roles in Janeane Garofalo's acting career was her long-running portrayal of talent booker Paula in The Larry Sanders Show.

She was nominated for an Emmy award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in both 1996 (winner: Julia Louis-Dreyfus for Seinfeld) and 1997 (winner: Kristen Johnston for 3rd Rock from the Sun).

Meanwhile Garofalo had been acting in movies. Her first major impact on the big screen was in the romantic comedy The Truth About Cats and Dogs, in which Garofalo got rave reviews.

The film credits continued throughout the nineties and the naughties.

In 2005 and 2006 she played Matt Santos's, played by Jimmy Smits, media strategist, Louise Thornton in The West Wing.

In 2007, New York Mag had a piece about Janeane Garofalo's stand-up act.

In August 2007 Reuters reported that Janeane Garofalo is to star on 24 in the seventh series as a government agent who is part of the team investigating the crisis befalling Jack Bauer.

Janeane Garofalo's character in 24 was agent Janis Gold.

In 2009 her film credits included Love Hurts, and Labor Pains.