Ed O’Neil is an American actor and comedian. He is popularly known for his role as Al Bundy in Tv sitcom Married… with children and as Jay Pritchett in award-winning sitcom Modern family. His mother was a social worker and his father was a truck driver and steel, mill worker. The actor has won four Screen Actor Guild Awards and been nominated for two Golden Globes and three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Ed O’Neil’s net worth is estimated to be $70 million but this doesn’t tell the full story of a great actor with a colourful career. I have assembled this article for you to know other exciting details about Ed O’Neil. Let’s Check out his bio/Wiki, TV shows, Wife/family and more.
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Bio Wiki
Ed O’Neil is an American actor and comedian born on April 12, 1946, into an Irish-American Catholic family in Youngstown, Ohio. His full name is Edward Leonard Neil. He is popularly known for his role as Al Bundy in the long-running sitcom Married… with children (alongside Christina Applegate) for which he had the honour of being nominated for two Golden Globes and as Jay Pritchett, the head of a patchwork family in the award-winning sitcom aired on ABC Network, Modern family which got him a nomination for three Primetime Emmy Awards. The actor has won four Screen Actor Guild Awards for Modern family as the Best Ensemble in Comedy Series and two Behind the Voice Actor Awards for Wreck-It Ralph.
His mother used to be a social worker and his father was a truck driver and steel mill worker. He has two brothers and two sisters younger to him. He has American Nationality. O’Neil attended Ursuline High School and called by the name Ed O’ Winner because of winning the state championship. He graduated from Ohio on a sports scholarship and majored in history. he left Ohio University in his sophomore year and transferred to Youngstown State University. Neil had a passion for football and wanted to become a professional footballer, and played as a defensive lineman at Youngstown State University. The Pittsburgh Steelers bought Neil as an outside linebacker in 1969, but his luck was badly out and dropped out of the team during training. Ed struggled a lot initially doing jobs as a truck driver, bartender, steel mill worker, salesman, and hotel jobs before starting his acting career. He was teaching social studies as a substitute teacher in Ursuline High School when he decided to switch careers and opted for acting. He started as a stage actor in “Of Mice and Men” the production of American Repertory Theatre and appeared in several commercials and films as a guest actor before landing on the role of America’s favorite “Al Bundy” from which he rose to celebrity status overnight and since then he is irreplaceable.
Net Worth and Earnings
After giving 40 long years to his acting career, O’Neil has proved and established himself as the niftiest and tremendous actor who can fit into any genre and has the ability to nail it, whether its Commercials, Tv, Films or voice over. He emerged as the most flexible and versatile actor over these years.
In 2011, honored with 2,446th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for depicting the character of Al Bundy. Reportedly, Ed O’Neil used to earn $200,000 between the year 2014 to 2018. His estimated earnings in 2019, were $500,000 per episode of Modern Family and the Net worth was around $65 Million. As in January 2020, the veteran actor has a whopping Net worth of $70 Million.
Tv Shows and Movies
In 1972, O’Neil started off as a stage actor and auditioned for Youngstown Theatre Productions several times but did not get any speaking role. He did his first-ever tv/movie role in film Deliverance and got only one line. He had savings of a total of $1,700 in his account, which he got from selling his car and working as a busboy when he moved to New York in 1977. Finally, in the year 1980, his hard work paid off and he got this first onscreen role as an understudy boxer in “Knockout”. This film was a sort of opener for him and he caught the eye of William Friedkin and co-starred in his debut film Cruising with Al Pacino, who is still his friend.
In 1985, he appeared in Red Lobster commercial and did guest appearances in Equalizer, Tv series, Miami Vice and Spenser of Hire. These shows earned him good reviews and he made his way to Hollywood. In 1986, he played NYPD detective Jimmy in a two-hour pilot for Tv Series Popeye Doyle but unfortunately, series was canceled by Network Television. In 1987, he successfully got cast in Fox television network sitcom Married…with children, revolves around a dysfunctional family (1987-1997).
In 2009, he played the role of Jay Pritchett in ABC Network sitcom Modern family. Neil’s movie credits’ include Dutch, Little Giants, The Bone Collector, Wayne’s World, Wayne’s World 2, The 10th Kingdom, Blue chips, The Aventures of Ford Fairland, The Dogs of War, Prefontaine and Sun Dogs. Furthermore, He made a cameo on the sitcom 8 Simple Rules, Entourage and Family Guy. In 2003, he was cast by Dick Wolf in his remake of crime series Dragnet as Joe Friday but the series got canceled in its season reason being the poor reception. He continued doing theatre along with acting and appeared in Lake boat (1994), a production by David Mamet’s. In 2009, Neil was honoured with the entire cast of Married… with Children at the 7th Annual TV Land Award Show.
He appeared as Eric Baker on NBC’s The West World and as Bill in TV series John From Cincinnati on HBO. O’Neil collaborated with David Faustino, his costar from Married…with Children for his show Star-Ving For two episodes. He also briefly appeared on Comedy Variety Show, In Living Color. He did an advertisement in 2008 for Barack Obama as “Al the Shoe salesman”.
Apart from being an actor, he has also done voice-overs for Walmart store-branded mobile phone service, Straight Talk along with different tv commercials of Zyrtec. He did vocals for a number of animated films, including The Penguins of Madagascar (2012) as Orson, Finding Dory (2016), a Pixar animated film as Hank, the Octopus, Wreck-It Ralph (2012) and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) as Mr. Litwak.
Wife Personal Life
Ed O’Neil is happily married to the actress Catherine Rusoff born in 1954. She graduated from Teaneck High School. Her most notable works include The New Adam-12 Series (1989), NBC’s Highway to Heaven and short-lived Series, Midnight Caller and Tv movie The whereabouts of Jenny. She also did a cameo in season 2 and 6 of Married with Children. The couple got married in 1986, and have two daughters named, Claire O’Neil born in 1996 and Sophia O’Neil born in 1998. The couple got split in 1990 due to some issues but reconciled in 1993. Their current residence is in Los Angeles.
Neil is also a black belt which he considered as his biggest triumph, other than his kids. His friend John Milius writer/director introduced him to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and got training by Grandmaster, Rorion Gracie 9th degree Red Belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for 22 years. He is a party lover and got heaps of friends. He plays handball as well
Net Worth of Ed O’Neils co-stars
- Katey Sagal, co-star from Married with Children
- David Faustino, co-star from Married with Children
- Christina Applegate, co-star from Married with Children
- Amanda Bearse, co-star from Married with Children
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