Pollak was born on October 30, 1957, in San Francisco, California.[1] He is the younger son of Elaine Harlow and Robert Pollak. He has one older brother, Craig, who lives in San Jose, California.[2] He attended high school at Pioneer High School in San Jose. Pollak was raised in Reform Judaism.[3]
Career
Acting
Pollak in 2011
As an actor, Pollak's roles include the best friend, family or confidant characters to the leading men, as he did in Ricochet (1991), A Few Good Men (1992), Grumpy Old Men (1993) and its sequel Grumpier Old Men (1995), Casino (1995), End of Days (1999), and The Wedding Planner (2001). However, he has also played a wide variety of parts, such as a comical brownie in Willow (1988), the philandering brother of Sarah Jessica Parker in Miami Rhapsody (1995), a criminal in The Usual Suspects (1995), a father in She's All That (1999), and a gangster in The Whole Nine Yards (2000). His most substantial role to date was in Deterrence (1999), in which he played the main character, a vice president who must take over for a deceased President and deal with a nuclear crisis.
Pollak briefly hosted Celebrity Poker Showdown in its first season. In December 2006, he played Karl Kreutzfeld in the Sci Fi Channel miniseries The Lost Room. Through 2008, he had a recurring role as a district attorney on the television series Shark. In March 2008, Pollak played himself in the web series The Writers Room on Crackle.[4] In 2010, he portrayed Sheriff Tom Wagner in Choose.[5]
In 2014, Pollak began a recurring role as Alvin Biletnikoff on the CBS sitcom Mom. His time on the show ended with the death of his character.
Starting in 2016, Pollak played the role of Marion in the FX series Better Things. His character was recurring throughout all five seasons.
In 2017, Pollak joined the cast of the Golden Globe–winning The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, an original series from Amazon, as Moishe Maisel, the main character's father-in-law.
In 2019, Pollak appeared in five episodes of the fourth season on Showtime's Billions, as Douglas Mason.[6]
As a comedian, Pollak's most famous work was his 1991 HBO special Stop with the Kicking, directed by fellow comedian David Steinberg and produced by comedy writer Martin Olson. In July 2010, The Littlest Suspect, his most recent comedy special, was aired on Showtime. Comedy Central named Pollak one of the Top 100 Comedians of All Time.
The guest interviews are very in-depth and typically longer than an hour in duration, sometimes exceeding two hours. Common topics include the guests' childhoods, how they got into the business they are in (typically show business), how they got inspired to start certain creative endeavors, and unique experiences they have had while working. Viewers can interact via chat room during the show, and sometimes questions for the guest posed in the chat room are answered live.
"The Larry King Game", which requires the guest to do a bad Larry King impression, reveal something about oneself (in the persona of Larry King) and then go to the phones and say a funny-sounding city
"Tweet Five," where Pollak reads the guest five questions from a Twitter user, usually in a this-or-that style
"Who Tweeted", in which a host (typically Samm Levine) reads tweets from the Twitter accounts of three female celebrities (the list of actresses varies, but typically includes Demi Moore (or, more recently, Justin Bieber), Tyra Banks, and Paris Hilton) and Pollak and his guest compete against each other game-show-style to guess who authored each tweet.
"You're Not Buffering", in which Pollak freezes mid-statement during his interview as though the show has paused due to internet lag, but he's actually still live. He then breaks his pause and says, "You're not buffering." .
In 2012, Pollak began a new podcast called Talkin Walkin in which he spends an hour or more with a new guest in character as Christopher Walken. After three episodes, the show was rated in the top 5 of all comedy podcasts by iTunes.[citation needed]
He is the only person to ever go "2 for 2" (two exact matches), as a guest on the Sklar Brothers/Daniel Van Kirk podcast Dumb People Town, in the "Guess the Age" game. The feat was completed on the episode released on April 2, 2018.[10]
In 2018,[11] Pollak began hosting a comedy improvisation podcast called Alchemy This, on the network iHeartRadio. It features a regular cast of 5 members, Craig Cackowski, James Heaney, Chris Alvarado, Vanessa Ragland, and Joey Greer, as well as several guests.[12]
Poker
Pollak is an avid poker player. He finished 134th out of 6,598 entrants in the 2012 World Series of Poker and won $52,718.[13] He also hosts weekly home games with Hollywood celebrities.
Personal life
In 1995, Pollak married comedian Lucy Webb. They separated in 2005 and divorced in 2008.[14]
