Bob Odenkirk

In 1996, Bob Odenkirk married Naomi Yomtov. The couple has two children together.

Bob Odenkirk was born Robert John Odenkirk on 22 October 1962, in Illinois, USA. He was the second of seven siblings born to parents Barbara Odenkirk and Walter Odenkirk. His parents were Roman Catholics of German, Irish and Scottish descent.

His father Walter was a printing firm employee. He was also an alcoholic which probably caused his wife to divorce him. Young Bob was thus determined to avoid alcohol at any cost.

He attended Naperville North High School and Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Later, he transferred to the Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. There he worked as a radio DJ, writing and hosting a late night comedy show, ‘The Prime Time Special’ for his college radio station. The entertaining show proved to be a launch pad for his career.

Shortly before graduation, he began working at improv workshops and performed stand-up comedy for several years. Eventually, he befriended Robert Smigel, who helped him become a writer for ‘Saturday Night Live’ in 1987.

In 1987, Bob Odenkirk began his television career as a writer for ‘Saturday Night Live’. He worked on the show from season 13 to 20 (1987-1995). He worked together with Robert Smigel and Conan O'Brien in creating several sketches and learning the nuances of sketch writing from senior writers. He even acted in small roles on the show.

During summer breaks, he would perform stage shows. He did ‘Happy Happy Good Show’ in 1988, a one-man show called ‘Show-Acting Guy’ in 1989, and in the summer of 1990, he wrote and acted in the stage show, ‘Flag Burning Permitted in Lobby Only.’

In 1991, he wrote for the television show ‘Get a Life’ and the following year he wrote for ‘The Dennis Miller Show’. His friendship with Ben Stiller landed him a job in ‘The Ben Stiller Show’ in 1992. He worked both as a writer and actor on the show which lasted for 13 episodes.

After ‘The Ben Stiller Show’, he made frequent appearances from 1993 to 1998 on ‘The Larry Sanders Show’ as Stevie Grant, Larry Sander's agent. In 1993 and 1994, he wrote for the ‘Late Night with Conan O'Brien’ show. In the same period, he also appeared in a couple of television shows and radio programmes.

Along with the stand-up comedian David Cross, Bob Odenkirk began performing live sketch-comedy shows leading to their own show titled ‘Mr. Show with Bob and David’ on HBO in 1995. The show lasted for four seasons and 30 episodes, and was nominated for multiple Emmy awards for writing. Later, the pair wrote the movie ‘Run, Ronnie, Run’ (2002) but disowned credit due to disagreements with the studio.

Bob Odenkirk excelled as a writer for television sketch-comedy shows ‘Saturday Night Live’ (1987-1991) and ‘The Ben Stiller Show’ (1992-1993). He even won the Emmy Award twice for his writing.

He directed the film ‘Melvin Goes to Dinner’ (2003) and also played the role of Keith in the movie. The film is an adaptation of Michael Blieden's stage play ‘Phyro-Giants!’ and has won several awards including Phoenix Film Festival Award for Best Picture and Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival Award for Best Feature Film.

He appeared as a corrupt lawyer, Saul Goodman, in the television series ‘Breaking Bad’ (2008–13) and its spin-off prequel, ‘Better Call Saul’ (2015 - present). Both the series have been well received and have also been nominated for various awards.