Brad H. Gerstenfeld (born April 14, 1960), known professionally as Brad Garrett, is an American stand-up comedian and actor.
In the early 1980s, Garrett was initially successful as a stand-up comedian. In the late 1980s, he leveraged that success as he began appearing in television and film, in minor and guest roles. His first major role was as Robert Barone on the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, which debuted September 13, 1996, and ran for nine seasons. In 2002, he gave an Emmy-nominated and critically lauded performance as Jackie Gleason in the television film Gleason.
Garrett also played the leading role of Eddie Stark on the Fox sitcom 'Til Death from 2006 to 2010. From 2018 to 2020, he starred in the ABC sitcom Single Parents.
In 2021, Garrett helped create Disney+'s Big Shot with David E. Kelley and Dean Lorey, and is known for voicing the Big Dog on 2 Stupid Dogs, as well as for the films such as Casper (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), An Extremely Goofy Movie (2000), The Country Bears (2002), Finding Nemo (2003), Garfield (2004), Tarzan II, Tom and Jerry: Blast Off to Mars (both 2005), Ratatouille (2007), Tangled (2010), Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil (2011), Planes franchise (2013-14), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), Christopher Robin (2018) and Elio (2025). He later became the current voice of Eeyore in Disney's Winnie the Pooh franchise, becoming Peter Cullen's successor after his death in 2026.
Garrett has won three Primetime Emmy Awards, with three other nominations. He is still prominent within stand-up comedy and owns Brad Garrett's Comedy Club at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, where he performs regularly.
Contents
Early life
Garrett was born Brad H. Gerstenfeld on April 14, 1960, to Barbara and Alvin "Al" Gerstenfeld in Oxnard, California. He is Jewish. His grandparents were from Russia and Poland. Garrett has two brothers, Jeff and Paul. He attended George Ellery Hale Middle School and graduated from El Camino Real High School, both in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles, California. Garrett attended UCLA for less than two months before dropping out to pursue his comedy career.
Career
Before comedy, Garrett was known for being on the rear cover of ELO's eighth studio album Discovery. In the early 1980s, he started doing standup at various comedy clubs in Los Angeles, including The Improv in Hollywood and The Ice House in Pasadena. In 1984, he became the first $100,000 grand champion winner in the comedy category of the TV show Star Search. This led to his first appearance, at age 23, on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, making him one of the youngest comedians ever to perform on the show. His appearance with Carson brought Garrett more national attention, and soon he was appearing as an opening act for such headliners as Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli. He also opened in Las Vegas for Frank Sinatra, David Copperfield, Smokey Robinson, Sammy Davis Jr., the Beach Boys, The Righteous Brothers, and Julio Iglesias.
After achieving a strong measure of success with stand-up comedy, Garrett began performing on TV. From 1985 to 1986, he was the voice of Hulk Hogan (in a voice similar to Rodney Dangerfield) in the animated series Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n Wrestling. He was featured on Family Feud during Ray Combs's tenure in a "Funny Men vs. Funny Women Week" during November sweeps. He also appeared for a week on the game show Super Password in 1987. He also appeared on Hollywood Squares including a moment when he impersonated Bill Cosby during a question about Jell-o. He then appeared in the short-lived summer comedy First Impressions (CBS, 1988), in which he was a divorced father who makes a living doing impressions, in a one-time spot as a bank loan officer on Roseanne (ABC), and The Pursuit of Happiness (NBC, 1995–96), in which he was the hero's gay best friend. Prior to these roles, Garrett had also had a minor part on Transformers, voicing the Decepticon base Trypticon in season three and as an ill-fated thug in Suicide Kings. He soon won the role of Ray Romano's brother Robert Barone on the family-oriented comedy Everybody Loves Raymond, and in 1998, he and Romano appeared together in their respective roles on a Season 1 episode of The King of Queens, titled "Road Rayge", in which Robert is jealous of his brother spending so much time with Doug Heffernan (the main character played by Kevin James). Garrett also appeared on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air playing a hitman who attempts to kill Will Smith.
His role on Everybody Loves Raymond won him five Emmy Award nominations, and the 2002, 2003 and 2005 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
In 1990, Garrett appeared as a semi-regular panelist on the revival of Match Game. On the May 2, 1996, episode of the sitcom Seinfeld, called "The Bottle Deposit", Garrett played a rogue auto mechanic who steals Jerry Seinfeld's car.
Personal life
In 1998, Garrett proposed to his then-girlfriend, Jill Diven, on the set of Everybody Loves Raymond, and they were married on May 18, 1999; together they have two children, a son and a daughter. Garrett and Diven separated in 2005, and Diven filed for divorce in July 2006. The divorce was finalized in November 2007.
In 2008, he began dating actress IsaBeall Quella, whom he met at a Vose art gallery in Boston. They were engaged in December 2015. The couple married on November 11, 2021.
Garrett stated in an interview in May 2015, that as his acting career began, he achieved sobriety from alcoholism, later admitting he was a "high-functioning alcoholic".
