Rise to Fame
He spent three years in the late 1980s living out of a Ford Tempo, keeping food in an Igloo cooler and surviving on $50 a week. His first standup set was at a Cleveland club in 1985, and the road took years to pay off. The Kings of Comedy tour with Cedric the Entertainer, D.L. Hughley, and Bernie Mac was the pivot, reportedly grossing $18 million in its first year. Spike Lee filmed it. The Steve Harvey Show ran six seasons on WB after that.
In the Spotlight
He's been hosting Family Feud since 2010, reportedly earning $10 million a year, making him the longest-running host in the show's history. His morning radio show draws 7 million weekly listeners. The defining disaster came in December 2015: he announced Miss Colombia as the Miss Universe winner live on Fox, in front of audiences across 190 countries. The actual winner was Miss Philippines. The crown was already on the wrong head. People Googled his name 4 billion times in 48 hours.
Side Notes
He grew up in Cleveland after the family left West Virginia coal country, where his father worked the mines. He tried Kent State, joined Omega Psi Phi, and flunked out. His homeless stretch wasn't a brief rough patch, it was three years in a Ford Tempo on $50 a week. He's said he still operates from fear of going back to it, which explains everything about the pace he's kept since.