Yakov Smirnoff

Yakov Naumovich Pokhis (Яков Наумович Похис; born 24 January 1951), better known as Yakov Smirnoff (Яков Смирнов; ), is an American comedian, actor and writer.

Smirnoff began doing stand-up comedy in the US in the late 1970s.

He chose the last name "Smirnoff" after trying to think of a name that Americans would be familiar with; he had learned about Smirnoff vodka in his bartending days.

He began his career as a stand-up comedian in the Soviet Union, then immigrated to the United States in 1977 in order to pursue an American show business career, not yet knowing any English.

After two years of attempting to leave, he came to the United States with his parents in 1977, arriving in New York City.

His family was allowed to come to America because of "an agreement between the USSR and America to exchange wheat for Soviet citizens who wished to defect".

At the time, neither he nor his parents spoke any English.

On arrival to the United States, he was almost sent back to the USSR when his interpreter mistranslated his occupation, comedian, as "party organizer", which immigration authorities thought meant that he was an organizer for the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Smirnoff spent a portion of his early days in the United States working as a busboy and bartender at Grossingers Hotel in the Catskill Mountains of New York and living in the employee dormitory.

He reached his biggest success in the mid-to-late 1980s, appearing in several films which include Moscow on the Hudson with Robin Williams, The Money Pit with Tom Hanks, Heartburn with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, and Brewster's Millions with Richard Pryor.

He was a star of the television series What a Country! and was a recurring guest star on NBC's hit television series Night Court playing a part of Yakov Korolenko.

His comic persona was of a naive immigrant from the Soviet Union who was perpetually confused and delighted by life in the United States.

His humor combined a mockery of life under Communist states and of consumerism in the United States, as well as word play caused by misunderstanding of American phrases and culture, all punctuated by the catchphrase, "And I thought, 'What a country!'

In the early 1980s, he moved to Los Angeles to further pursue his stand-up comedy career.

While there, he was roommates with two other aspiring comedians: Andrew Dice Clay and Thomas F. Wilson.

Smirnoff often appeared at renowned L.A. club the Comedy Store.

In the late 1980s, Smirnoff was commissioned by ABC to provide educational bumper segments for Saturday morning cartoons Fun Facts, punctuated with a joke and Smirnoff's signature laugh.

After achieving some level of fame, Smirnoff got his first break with a small role in the 1984 film Moscow on the Hudson; on the set, he helped star Robin Williams with his Russian dialogue.

He subsequently appeared in several other motion pictures, including Buckaroo Banzai (1984), Brewster's Millions (1985) and The Money Pit (1986).

Among his numerous appearances on television, he was featured many times on the sitcom Night Court as "Yakov Korolenko", and appeared as a comedian and guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

He had a starring role in the 1986–87 television sitcom What a Country! In that show, he played a Russian cab driver studying for the U.S. citizenship test.

In 1987, Smirnoff was invited to a party hosted by Washington Times editor-in-chief Arnaud de Borchgrave which featured President Ronald Reagan as the guest of honor.

Reagan and Smirnoff immediately hit it off due to Reagan's love of jokes about life in the Soviet Union.

Reagan enjoyed telling such jokes in speeches, and Smirnoff became one of his sources for new material.

An example of a joke Reagan later told that originated from Smirnoff was "In Russia, if you say, 'Take my wife - please', you come home and she is gone."

Smirnoff was enlisted by Dana Rohrabacher, who was then a speechwriter for Reagan, to help with material for Reagan's speeches, including a speech given in front of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev when Reagan visited the Soviet Union during the Moscow Summit in 1988.

Rohrabacher later stated that Smirnoff became "one of the inner circle" of speechwriting advisers during Reagan's final years in office, due to the quality of Smirnoff's suggestions.

In 1988, Smirnoff was the featured entertainer at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner and he appeared in some commercials for hotel chain Best Western.

The Fall of Communism starting in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought an end to Smirnoff's widespread popularity, although he continued to perform.

In the late 1990s he retooled his stand-up act to focus on the differences between men and women, and on solving problems within relationships.

In 1993, he began performing year round at his own theater in Branson, Missouri.

He occasionally still performs limited dates at his theater in Branson while touring worldwide.

Since 1993, he has been performing at his own 2,000-seat theater, and over the years has entertained more than five million people in a live setting.

His 28th consecutive season was commemorated in Branson, Missouri in 2021.

Smirnoff earned a master's degree in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 and a doctorate in psychology and global leadership from Pepperdine University in 2019.

He has also taught a course titled "The Business of Laughter" at Missouri State University and at Drury University.

The son of Naum Pokhis and Klara Pokhis, Smirnoff was born in Odesa, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union (USSR).

He was an art teacher in Odesa, as well as a comedian.

As a comedian, he entertained occasionally on ships in the Black Sea, where he came into contact with Americans who described life in the United States to him.

That was when he first considered leaving the country.