Bruce Vilanch

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Bruce Vilanch
Image:Vilanchwiki.jpg Comedian Bruce Vilanch in The Aristocrats
Born	November 24 1948 (1948-11-24) (age 61) Image:Flag of the United States.svg New York City, New York, U.S.

Bruce Vilanch (born November 23, 1948) is an American comedy writer who caught the public eye when he became a wisecracking regular on the revamped Hollywood Squares with Whoopi Goldberg.

Vilanch attended Ohio State University as a theater and journalism student and graduated with a BFA in theatre in 1970. Also in 1978 he was one of the writers for The Star Wars Holiday Special, and had a short appearance in Bosom Buddies in the early 1980's. His first television appearance was in 1988 on Hollywood Today, where he was interviewed by Chris Aable. The show aired in 43 cities on Century Cable and the Manhattan Neighborhood Cable Network.

Vilanch is an obese man with long blond hair, a big, bushy beard, and glasses. He is a practicing Jew^{[citation needed]}, openly gay, straight edge^{[citation needed]}, and "a notorious meat eater".^[1] He has a penchant for wearing wacky T-shirts.^{[citation needed]}

Vilanch has provided topical joke material for a number of awards show hosts, notably Billy Crystal at the Academy Awards. He commands high fees for emergency Hollywood script rewrites, having "punched up" scripts for films like Die Hard 2 and Raiders of the Lost Ark.^{[citation needed]}

Vilanch has a musical comedy background (he co-wrote the book for the flop Platinum and contributed to far more successful concert shows starring Bette Midler, Diana Ross, and Michael Feinstein) and claims to have done every Stubby Kaye role ever written. In 2005, he starred on Broadway as Edna Turnblad in the musical Hairspray. He was on the third edition of Celebrity Fit Club^{[citation needed]} and lost 21 pounds over the course of the show.

Vilanch has been the subject of two documentaries: Get Bruce (1999) and Laughing Matters...The Men, also released as Laughing Matters: Gay Comedy in America (2007), where he shared the spotlight with Alec Mapa, Bob Smith and others.