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Paula Poundstone

Paula PoundstoneBorn: 29-Dec-1959
Birthplace: Huntsville, AL

Gender: Female
Religion: Atheist
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Asexual
Occupation: Comic

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Asexual comic

Paula Poundstone has bused tables, and worked as a bike messenger. She started doing comedy on open-mike nights in Boston in 1979. She's politically liberal, wrote for Mother Jones from 1993 to 1998 and covered the 1996 Republican Convention for The Rosie O'Donnell Show. She's known for wearing loud neckties, and has joked for years of being in therapy. Her 1993 comedy-variety Paula Poundstone Show aired for two weeks on ABC before being canceled.

In 2001, Poundstone was arrested for driving drunk with kids in the car, and the state took custody of her three children. She was charged with, among other things, "lewd acts on a girl under the age of 14", and though that charge was dropped, everyone involved is under a court order not to talk about it -- an ideal ingredient for career-wrecking gossip. Poundstone has said only that she was drunk, she's sorry, and the "lewd acts" charge was "without foundation". The whispered but unconfirmed story is that Poundstone's foster daughter made up the "lewd act".

That would jibe with Poundstone's public persona -- she is asexual, doesn't date, and she has never been romantically linked with anyone of any gender. "I don't have sex because I don't like it," she once joked. "I'd have to marry a Mormon so someone could cover my shift." What is known for sure about the 2001 incident is that Poundstone went into rehab, cleaned up her alcoholism, and she regained custody of her children a year and a half later.

She was a panelist on To Tell the Truth when she was first arrested, a gig she quickly lost, and her career has languished since. She still does stand-up comedy and often appears on NPR's quiz show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and that's about it. "I'm now a nationally known child abuser, and believe me, what a pleasure it is to carry that moniker around".

She is also the co-author of several books about mathematics for grade-school students, co-written with her former high school math teacher, Faye Nisonoff Ruopp.

Father: (electrical engineer, Raytheon)
Daughter: Toshia (b. 1991; adopted 1997)
Daughter: Allison (b. 1994; adopted 1997)
Son: Thomas

    High School: Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, Sudbury, MA (dropped out)

    Mother Jones Columnist (1993-98)
    Alcoholics Anonymous
    IHOP Hostess
    Promises
    Driving While Intoxicated 27-Jun-2001 (arrested in Santa Monica, CA)
    Child Endangerment 27-Jun-2001 (Santa Monica, CA, no contest)
    Child Molestation 27-Jun-2001 (Santa Monica, CA, charge dropped
    Violating Probation
    Lost Child Custody (temporary)
    Risk Factors: Alcoholism

    TELEVISION
    The Hollywood Squares
    Home Movies Paula Small (1999)

    FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
    Inside Out (18-May-2015) [VOICE]
    Wisecracks (Jun-1992) · Herself
    Hyperspace (Sep-1984)

Official Website:
http://www.paulapoundstone.com/

Rotten Library Page:
Paula Poundstone

Author of books:
There's Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say (2006, memoir)


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