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Actor/Comedian

Eddie Griffin has never been afraid to say pretty much anything. And he's been that way since the very beginning, when his cousin prodded him into telling jokes at a local comedy club in Kansas City, Mo. "Me and my cousin Curtis were just hanging out in Kansas City, and stopped over at a comedy club and he made a bet that I wouldn't get on stage," Griffin recalls. "[I] had a couple more cognacs, [and] next thing you know I had a mic in my hand." All he needed was a shot, and Griffin's been telling jokes ever since.

He really became a household name after Russell Simmon's hit "Def Comedy Jam" gave him a platform to showcase his talents on television - something the comedian recognizes now as the springboard he and many of his contemporaries needed. "I think that first season of 'Def Jam' was the hottest because myself, Bernie [Mac], Adele [Givens], Earthquake, all of us, we already had been doing stand-up for years before," he explains. "There just weren't any shows for a black comedian to have an outlet, so when 'Def Jam' came and we finally got on TV, we [were] hungry."

That hunger is still with Griffin, he still hits the stage with the ferocity of a lion, and he teams with Givens, Earthquake, and the hilarious Lavell Crawford at the "Larger Than Life Comedy Showdown" in Atlanta in September. For him, the stage is where it's at. "When you're doing movies, you're doing somebody else's words and playing somebody else's character," he says. "Stand-up is the only time you get to use your own words - it's full freedom of speech."

Be sure to check out the "Larger Than Life Comedy Showdown" on Sept. 15 at the Atlanta Civic Center. - todd williams

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