Greg Giraldo

Gregory Carlos Giraldo (December 10, 1965 – September 29, 2010) was an American stand-up comedian, television personality, and lawyer.

He is remembered for his appearances on Comedy Central's televised roast specials, and for his work on that network's television shows Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, Lewis Black's Root of All Evil, and the programming block Stand-Up Nation, the last of which he hosted.

Giraldo was born in the Bronx and raised in Bayside, Queens.

His father, Alfonso, was from Colombia and worked for Pan Am, and his mother, Dolores, was from Spain.

Giraldo was raised Roman Catholic and spoke fluent Spanish.

He was the oldest of three children (brother John and sister Elizabeth).

Giraldo played the guitar in a band in his late teens/early twenties.

Giraldo was an excellent student and was accepted into the private Jesuit Regis High School in Manhattan.

After graduating from Regis in 1983, he earned a bachelor's degree in English from Columbia University in 1987.

While at Columbia, he was an active member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity.

He earned a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School in 1990.

Giraldo passed the bar and began a career as a lawyer, working for eight months as an associate for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom before changing his occupation.

Giraldo started doing stand-up comedy in 1992.

When asked who his comedic influences were, Giraldo stated: "For me, I wasn't really influenced by the good people. I was influenced by the (crappy) people. I would watch 'Evening at the Improv' and those kind of shows, and I'd think, 'Man, those guys blow so bad. I can do that.' And I went from there."

Giraldo performed regularly at the Comedy Cellar comedy club in Manhattan, as well as clubs all over the U.S. Additionally, he was the star of the short-lived sitcom Common Law.

In 1993, Giraldo provided pro bono defense counsel services to his friend and fellow comedian Jeffrey Ross, who was charged with inciting a riot.

Ross was performing at a comedy club on Long Island when a member of the audience pulled out a toy gun that looked real.

Ross grabbed the gun and fought with the man for control; he was arrested in the incident.

When Ross went to court to face the charges, "Greg volunteered to be my attorney as a favor. I remember we slept in his parents' basement in Queens. We drove to court in a Jeep and had dirty blue sport jackets on. It took him two tries, but he got the case dismissed."

Giraldo said that, at the time of the case, he had never litigated in a courtroom before.

When the case was upgraded to a weapons charge, he had nearly told Ross to plead guilty, which would have resulted in his friend serving jail time.

"The judge called us over... and I had to plead, 'I have no idea what I'm doing here.' We ended up having to get a real lawyer and come back a month later," said Giraldo.

Giraldo found that, although he did well in law school, he did not like the practice of corporate law.

His family was disappointed that Giraldo left law practice, but he said: I always wanted to do something creative.

I've always had real trouble knowing what my actual desires and goals are.

I've just been dragged along by fate.

I can't even tell you why I thought to go to law school.

Because I went to Harvard Law School it seemed like I had my shit together, but I did only because it’s not hard.

Everyone is so self-motivated that they leave you alone.

You get study outlines and just cram, but then when you get out into the real world, it gets tricky.

Most comedians are people who couldn’t really work in the real world, they’re too disorganized, too lazy, too fucked up, too erratic, too unstable.

If you could work in the real world you would have stayed there because it is so many years of misery in comedy before you really start popping.

Giraldo landed the sitcom after being spotted by Hollywood agents at the 1995 Just for Laughs festival in Montreal.

Giraldo was admitted to Harvard Law School after achieving a near perfect score on his Law School Admission Test (LSAT), scoring in the 99th percentile of students taking the test.

In August 2000, Giraldo was featured in an Esquire magazine article that profiled several members of the Harvard Law School class of 1990 who ended up choosing career paths other than law.

After turning to comedy, Giraldo rarely discussed his prior career; the Esquire article was one of the few times that he referred to his time as a lawyer.

From 2002 to 2004, he was a regular panelist on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn.

Giraldo also starred in several pilots, including Drive for CBS and The Greg Giraldo Show, Adult Content and Gone Hollywood for Comedy Central.

In 2004, he was featured in the spoken-word Lazyboy song "Underwear Goes Inside the Pants".

Giraldo performed more than a dozen times on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Late Show with David Letterman, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! and appeared regularly on The Howard Stern Show.