Mike O'Malley
Mike O'Malley went from hosting GUTS to Yes, Dear and Glee, then created Survivor's Remorse and ran Heels. How a game show host became a showrunner.
Photo: kristin from Somerville, MA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Resized and converted to WebP.
Four O'Malley Children in Nashua
Mike O'Malley was born on October 31, 1966, and grew up in Nashua, New Hampshire, one of four O'Malley children. His father worked as an executive in the defense industry and his mother as a career counselor, according to TV Insider. He was not the only performer in the family. His younger sister, Kerry O'Malley, became a Broadway actress, and an aunt, Regina O'Malley, worked as a professional actress.
"We weren't the Von Trapps or anything, but my uncles and my parents had great senses of humor," he told UNH Magazine in 2003.
He went to Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua. A small failure there turned up in his work three decades later. "Ever since I got cut from the freshman hoop team at Bishop Guertin High School in 1980, I've wanted to write about my love and hatred of basketball," he said in 2014, when Starz ordered his basketball comedy.
Danny Zuko at the University of New Hampshire
At the University of New Hampshire, where he joined the Kappa Sigma fraternity, he did not discover theater until his senior year. That year he played Danny Zuko in the 1988 production of Grease. He graduated in 1988 and went on to acting school in New York City.
Get the Picture and GUTS on Nickelodeon
His first steady work was as a host on Nickelodeon in the early 1990s. He fronted the game show Get the Picture and then the sports competition GUTS and its international version, Global GUTS.
Jimmy Hughes on Yes, Dear
The role that made him a sitcom regular was Jimmy Hughes on the CBS comedy Yes, Dear. The show ran for six seasons and 122 episodes.
Three Plays and the Film Certainty
Alongside the acting, O'Malley wrote for the stage. He wrote three plays: Three Years from Thirty, Diverting Devotion, and Searching for Certainty. His reason was practical. "I started writing plays because I watched other people get parts that I wanted. I figured the best way to get those parts was to write them myself," he told UNH Magazine.
Searching for Certainty became the film Certainty, with a screenplay by O'Malley. It premiered at the Boston Film Festival in September 2011.
Burt Hummel on Glee
On Fox's Glee he played Burt Hummel, and the part brought him his one Emmy nomination. CBS still billed him as "Emmy-nominated" when it announced his newest show in 2026.
Survivor's Remorse at Starz
In February 2014 Starz gave a series order to Survivor's Remorse, a half-hour comedy written by O'Malley and set in professional basketball. Deadline reported the order at six episodes. LeBron James, Maverick Carter, Tom Werner, and Paul Wachter were executive producers alongside O'Malley.
O'Malley created the series and ran it as showrunner through his company, O'Malley Ink. It premiered in 2014 and lasted four seasons. In October 2017 The Hollywood Reporter reported that the fourth season finale would be the last episode.
Heels and the 2023 Writers Strike
His next Starz series was Heels, a wrestling drama created by Michael Waldron. O'Malley was the showrunner and also played Charlie Gully, a rival promoter. Starz canceled the show in September 2023 after two seasons.
The cancellation came as the writers strike ended. O'Malley, a member of the Writers Guild of America, had been on the picket line, and he said he was shopping the series to other networks. "I really do think it's going to have a life someplace else," he said, as quoted by Deadline. "We did not intend, nor do we intend, for [the season 2 finale] to be the last episode of the show."
Stacks of Cash on CBS
On September 30, 2026, Deadline reported that CBS had ordered Stacks of Cash, a quiz game show hosted by O'Malley. It was filmed in Portugal and was in post-production when the order was announced. Three decades after Get the Picture, he is a game show host again.
O'Malley has three children.
Sources
- Mike O'Malley
- The Many Faces of Mike O'Malley
- Mike O'Malley - Actor, Writer
- Starz Picks Up Basketball Comedy From LeBron James & Mike O'Malley To Series
- 'Survivor's Remorse' Ending After 4 Seasons
- 'Heels' Showrunner Mike O'Malley On Stephen Amell's Strike Comments
- 'Heels,' 'Run the World,' 'Blindspotting' Canceled at Starz
- CBS Orders New 'Undercover Boss' With Drew Carey, 2 More Unscripted Shows
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