On March 25th, comedian, actor, host of “The Price is Right” and American soccer’s most recognizable supporter will be the keynote speaker at the 5th Annual Celebration of Youth Luncheon to support Friends of Youth. The luncheon will be held at the Bellevue Hyatt Hotel from 12 noon to 1:15 p.m.
Carey is an owner of Seattle Sounders FC and serves as chairman of Sounders FC Alliance presented by FSN, the club’s member association. He is also the host of the popular television game show, “The Price is Right”.
Carey was born May 23, 1958 to Beulah and Lewis Carey in Cleveland, Ohio. The youngest of three brothers, Carey became especially withdrawn when his father, a draftsman for General Motors, succumbed to a brain tumor in 1966. As a result, Carey asked for psychiatric care; his mother, who was working multiple jobs to support the family, didn’t have time to help him seek out therapy.
Since there was a large age gap between Carey and his older brothers, the solitary, depressed boy was often left to his own devices. When the school day was done, he entertained himself with humor books, recordings of comedians and cartoons, and spent time with friends.
While in the Marine Reserves, his military buzz cut and black wide-rim glasses became part of his trademark look. He began his successful career as a comedian in April of 1986 at the Cleveland Comedy Club. One of his first big breaks was competing on “Star Search ’88.”
In 1991, Carey landed a spot on HBO’s “14th Annual Young Comedians Special” and appeared on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.” Carey landed his own television development deal at Disney, which led to an opportunity for Carey to co-star in the series “The Good Life.” Carey also had the opportunity to work with Bruce Helford, who was a consulting writer on the series and hired Carey as a staff writer for “The Gaby Hoffman Show.” Their experience led the two of them to decide to co-create a series for Carey. Carey went on to star in his own comedy special for Showtime, “Drew Carey: Human Cartoon” and performed in Showtime’s “Tenth Anniversary of the Montreal Comedy Festival.”
In 2007, Drew Carey was honored to be hired to take over the reins from the legendary Bob Barker on CBS’ “The Price is Right” series. He has recently begun production of his third season on the long-running daytime game show, which first aired on CBS in 1972. Drew Carey is an actor and producer who had the distinction of having two hit shows simultaneously: the long-running comedy “The Drew Carey Show,” which ran from 1995-2004, and the improv/sketch show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” on which he was host and a producer. The success of that show led to the creation of “Drew Carey’s Improv All-Stars,” an improv troupe that performs in showrooms across the country.
Next year Friends of Youth – a non-profit agency dedicated to supporting youth and their families in King and Snohomish counties – will celebrate 60 years serving teens and young adults. Friends of Youth provides a broad range of services to improve its clients’ emotional stability and self-sufficiency, including homeless shelters, transitional housing, outreach, mental health counseling and substance abuse prevention and treatment. For more information, visit www.friendsofyouth.org.