Biografia

When doing standup, he used to keep his eyes squinted shut out of nervousness. This later became a trademark of his.

Once bumped into Harrison Ford backstage at "The Tonight Show", who complimented his work in The Aristocrats (2005); Gottfried jokingly replied, "And you are?". Ford was not amused.

Was the voice of the AFLAC (American Family Life Assurance Company) duck until he was fired after tweeting controversial jokes about the 2011 tsunami in Japan [March 14, 2011]. He also voiced a goose in Jack and the Beanstalk (2009).

Married for the first time at age 51.

Frequently names Iago as his favorite role.

The pressure on being a comedian is being funny, but I've given that up, so there is no pressure whatsoever.

[on his character from Law & Order: Unità Speciale (1999)] I play a nerdy, well, yeah, I'm really playing someone nerdy. That's kind of like me saying "I'm playing someone Jewish".

[on Il Saturday Night Live (1975)] I was there right after the original cast left, and so back then it was like, "How dare they continue ["Saturday Night Live" (1975)] without the original cast of people?" Back then it would be like if in the middle of Beatlemania you just said, "Oh The Beatles are not John, Paul, George, and Ringo--it's Harry, Artie, Phil"--you know, it was an outrage. So before we even got on the air, they were already writing these articles: "Who the hell are these people?"

[on his controversial jokes] I have always felt comedy and tragedy are roommates. If you look up comedy and tragedy, you will find a very old picture of two masks. One mask is tragedy. It looks like it's crying. The other mask is comedy. It looks like it's laughing. Nowadays, we would say, "How tasteless and insensitive. A comedy mask is laughing at a tragedy mask."

In real life I'm a tall, blond Christian.