Ruby Wax

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Ruby Wax bigraphy, stories - Comedian, actress

Ruby Wax : biography

May 11, 1951 –

Ruby Wax (born Ruby Wachs in 1951) is an American comedian who made a career in the United Kingdom as part of the alternative comedy scene in the 1980s.

Controversies

Popetown

In 2004, the BBC planned to show a cartoon series called Popetown, which poked fun at the Roman Catholic Church. In it, Wax portrayed the Pope as a spoiled child. After protests, the BBC chose not to show the series. Guardian Online

Slander case

In February 2004, Irish broadcaster Patricia Danaher reached an out-of-court settlement with Wax, who had falsely claimed that Danaher had made "racist" and "anti-Semitic" remarks about her in an interview for Ulster Television. Wax’s legal team apologised in court, accepted that Danaher had not made any racist or anti-Semitic statements and announced that there had been a financial settlement.

Opposition to disabled-access ramp

In November 2005, Wax was criticised by the Daily Mail columnist Richard Kay for opposing a proposed disabled-access ramp for the nearby Couper Collection charitable art gallery. The UK Sunday newspaper The Observer also reported the controversy, The Observer as did the act "I, Ludicrous" in "The Ruby Wax Song", from their Dirty Washing 2008 EP.

Personal life

Wax is married to television producer and director Ed Bye, who produces some of the series of her long-time friends and working partners, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Wax and Bye have three children together: one son, Max (b. 1988), and two daughters, Madeleine (b. 1990) and Marina (b. 1993). The Independent

Early life

Wax is the daughter of Jewish parents who left Austria in 1939 because of the Nazi threat. bbc.co.uk Her father became wealthy as a sausage manufacturer theage.com.au and her mother qualified as an accountant. Wax was brought up in Evanston, Illinois in the 1950s and 60s. Wax elected to major in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Interview Programmes & Documentaries

  • Don’t Miss Wax, Channel 4, 1987-1988
  • Miami Memoirs, Channel 4, 1988
  • East Meets Wax, Channel 4, 1988
  • Class of ’69, Channel 4 1989
  • Wax on Wheels, Channel 4, 1988-1989
  • Ruby Takes a Trip, BBC, 1991
  • The Full Wax, BBC, 1991–1993
  • Ruby Wax Meets…, BBC, 1994–1998
  • Ruby’s American Pie, BBC, 1999
  • Ruby Gets Streetwise, BBC, 2000
  • Ruby, BBC 1997-2002
  • The Ruby Wax Show, BBC, 2002
  • Ruby Wax With…, BBC, 2003
  • Ruby Wax’s Mad Confessions, Channel 4, 2012

Early career

Wax came to the UK and studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. She started her acting career as a straight actress at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, where she began a long-standing writing and directing partnership with Alan Rickman, who later was to direct most of her stage comedy shows. In 1978, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, working alongside Juliet Stevenson in Measure for Measure, as Jaquenetta opposite Michael Hordern in Love’s Labours Lost, replacing Zoë Wanamaker as Jane in The Way of the World and appearing in the Howard Brenton three-hander Sore Throats.Howard Brenton: Plays One, Methuen, 1986 ISBN 041340430 While at the RSC, Wax also met and befriended Ian Charleson, and later contributed a chapter to the 1990 book, For Ian Charleson: A Tribute.Ian McKellen, Alan Bates, Hugh Hudson, et al. . London: Constable and Company, 1990. pp. 55–61.

Wax made a one-off appearance in a 1980 episode of The Professionals, Bloodsports, playing Lonnie, an American student. In 1981, she appeared in the follow up to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, called Shock Treatment. In the film, Wax portrays Betty Hapschatt, who got married to Ralph Hapschatt in the first film. Wax also appeared briefly as a secretary in Omen III: The Final Conflict.