Arthur Steven Lange Jr. (born October 11, 1967) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and radio personality best known for his tenures on the sketch comedy series Mad TV from 1995 to 1997 and The Howard Stern Show from 2001 to 2009.

[3] Two weeks after Lange's birth, his father went on trial for keeping $200,000 in counterfeit money for a loan shark, but was spared jail time out of the court's sympathy for his young son.

[15] In February 1991, Lange supported his family by taking up work as a longshoreman at Port Newark, loading ships at its orange juice pier.

[23] The success of these shows led to a contract with the William Morris Agency where Lange met Peter Principato, his manager for the next ten years.

Lange took up extra work with roles in commercials which were a "big step up",[23] including a voiceover for Foot Locker, which entitled him to become a member of AFTRA.

[31] At its conclusion, he wrote a new forty-five minute stand-up set that he felt "really proud of", and used his Mad TV fame to headline spots in comedy clubs around New York City,[32] supported by further voiceover work for commercials.

[34] Lange returned to form in his work, ranking his performance in these episodes as "the best I've ever done in sketch comedy", including the creation of his hit character, White Mama.

[35] In the summer of 1996, Lange secured his first major acting role for an independent film titled Puppet, starring Rebecca Gayheart and Fred Weller.

The incident began when Lange lost a $15,000 bet on the Mike Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield boxing match and turned up to rehearsals "coked up".

[37] While in jail, Lange received a voice mail from Cameron Crowe who informed him that his scene with Tom Cruise and Kelly Preston for Jerry Maguire had been cut.

After the producers at Mad TV convinced Lange to complete formal rehabilitation, he spent two months at Honesty House in Stirling, New Jersey.

[42] During the negotiations phase, Lange was contacted by comedian and actor Norm Macdonald, who asked him to audition for the dual lead role in his comedy buddy film Dirty Work (1998), directed by Bob Saget.

After meeting with them, including Warren Littlefield of NBC and Peter Roth of Fox, a bidding war occurred, with offers coming in from every major network.

With help from William Morris Agency, Lange accepted a $750,000 development deal with Fox that originally stood at $250,000 in late 1997,[48] enabling him "to bail my mother out of every single financial debt she had.

He enjoyed a period of wealth during this time, being paid $35,000 per episode for a show with "ridiculously lame, easy jokes", liked working with his castmates and lived in a $4,000-a-month condo in Beverly Hills.

[9] During a 2014 interview with Marc Maron, Lange said that this creative frustration drove him to perform more stand-up comedy as he "came into his own as a comedian" by introducing more "dark," edgy material into his act.

[17] Lange was prepared to return to Los Angeles if he did not land the job,[57] but he accepted a contract to join the show full-time, describing the offer as a "blessing".

[58] Around this time, Lange teamed with producer and writer Sam Simon for a comedy show pilot for DreamWorks to air on NBC, but it never materialized.

[14] Upon the DVD's general release in February 2005, Lange took on "an insane schedule" for the following six months to promote it, doing The Howard Stern Show each weekday morning, and stand up gigs nationwide on weekends.

[67] Lange took four days off work in June 2005 to get through the illness caused by withdrawals at home,[68] which prompted concerns from his family and radio colleagues of a drug relapse.

[72] In June 2008, Lange headlined a comedy tour he formed, named Operation Mirth, with the United Service Organizations to entertain American troops serving in Afghanistan.

Lange picked comedians Jim Florentine, Nick DiPaolo, and Dave Attell to join him, with The Howard Stern Show's producer Gary Dell'Abate as the tour's master of ceremonies.

[1] Later in the year, Lange and Attell recorded dialogue for the video game Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust, released in 2009.

[73] In 2008, Lange signed a deal with Spiegel & Grau to write his first book Too Fat to Fish,[11] a collection of memoirs across his life co-written by Anthony Bozza that "range from funny to dark, to tragic, to sad.

The death of his friend and fellow comedian Greg Giraldo from a prescription drug overdose two days later sent Lange back into a depression, at a time when he considered a "return to society".

[97] He wrote the book, Crash and Burn, with Bozza returning as his co-author,[87] which covers his life and career during his final years on The Howard Stern Show, his second suicide attempt and resulting depression, and his recovery.

[126] On July 7, 2017, Lange was rushed to a hospital and had emergency surgery on his chest after he collapsed after performing stand-up in Chicago, and claimed he was hours from death.

[134] In November 2018, Lange announced his decision to enter inpatient rehabilitation with comedian Bob Levy,[135] after breaking his four-year probation by testing positive twice for cocaine and opioids.

[96] In 2007, the New York City bakery Crumbs began to sell a vanilla and chocolate cupcake named Artie Lange which he designed himself, with proceeds going towards LIFEbeat, a HIV/AIDS charity.

[152] In March 2008, LIFEbeat refused to accept further donations after Lange used a variety of anti-gay epithets towards a co-worker with whom he was arguing on-air, although they later reached an amicable truce.