Growing up in suburban River Vale, New Jersey, Bill Maher decided in sixth grade that comedy was his calling. His first experience doing stand-up was in Paramus, NJ, at a Chinese restaurant called the Jade Fountain, where he performed with a high-school kid named Eddie Murphy. After graduating from Cornell, Maher moved to New York City in 1979, when he was 23, and started hosting at the comedy club Catch A Rising Star.

He was finally "caught" three years later, when comedian Steve Allen - who was also a recruiter for The Tonight Show - saw him perform and invited him on the show. During the 1980s, he also co-starred in a slew of forgettable TV movies like Rags to Riches and Club Med, as well as in the film D.C. Cab.

Along with pundit Al Franken, Maher acted as a correspondent for Comedy Central during the 1992 presidential election. Comedy Central execs liked what he did so much that they tapped him to host a round-table political program on the network, beginning in the fall of 1993, which became Politically Incorrect. Today, Maher spouts his rhetoric from ABC, where his show taken on features like the Citizen Panel, which allows PI viewers to actively participate.