Biography

Name: Rick Allen Moranis
Birthdate: April 18, 1953
Birthplace: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Family: His wife, Anne, was diagnosed with cancer of the liver in 1990; she died in the following year. Rick has two children from that marriage.

Rick Moranis worked as a DJ in the early seventies on a Toronto Top 40 radio station using Rick Allen as his on-air name. His television debut was in 1976 as a regular on the CBC-TV comedy series 90 Minutes Live, but it wasn’t until he joined the cast of the Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV in 1980 that he became more popular - not only in Canada, but also in the US, where it played on the NBC network. He and fellow cast member Dave Thomas developed characters called Bob and Doug McKenzie, brothers who were meant to represent stereotypical Canadian men... but combining as many negative Canadian stereotypes as possible. Despite this, they became so popular: The McKenzie brothers were such a hit with SCTV viewers that they even wound up starring in their own movie, Strange Brew (1983), written and directed by themselves. They both were even made members of the Order of Canada for their contribution to Canadian culture.

Rick was then asked to play a serious role in Streets of Fire (1984) with Diane Lane and Michael Paré. He didn’t enjoy the experience much, and was happy to return to comedy with Ghostbusters (1984), which turned out to be a huge box office success (and one of his most popular movies :)) Over the years, Rick has starred in a lot of comedies, including Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1986), Spaceballs (1987) or Parenthood (1989), for which he won an American Comedy Award as “Funniest Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture.” In 1990 he was scheduled to film the feature City Slickers (1991), but pulled out of the project when his wife was diagnosed with cancer. Since then, Rick has appeared as Barney Rubble in The Flintstones (1994) and more recently, he has been doing some voice work, including Disney's feature film Brother Bear (2003), along with Dave Thomas again. They also are the voices of Bob and Doug in the TV series The Animated Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie (2003).

Nowadays, Rick runs his own production company in New York.