Adam Sandler

Born: 9th September 1966
Where: Brooklyn, New York

Sandler has certainly attracted a wider audience than his early days as the class clown in his childhood New Hampshire town of Manchester.

Firmly fitting into the "love him or loathe him" category, Sandler has made his name in box office successes such as The Wedding Singer and Big Daddy.

However, he has recently increased the breadth of his roles in Punch Drunk Love and opposite Tea Leoni in Spanglish.

A fan of Rodney Dangerfield, Cheech & Chong and Caddyshack, he landed a recurring role in The Cosby Show after studying at New York University.

After dropping out of college and settling in LA, he hit the local comedy clubs including the Improv, where Dennis Miller discovered him.

Miller recommended Adam to Lorne Michaels, who hired him as a writer for Saturday Night Live, where his characters included Iraqi Pete, Canteen Boy and Cajun Man.

He made the growing list of SLV performers who made the transition to the big screen with his feature debut in the 1992 comedy Shakes the Clown.

However his biggest performance came in 1998 with the hugely successful The Wedding Singer followed by the Waterboy, which took £27m in its opening week in the US.

The formula continued with Big Daddy, Little Nicky, The Animal and Mr Deeds - but Sandler found himself in danger of becoming one-dimensional.

Parting from tradition he starred opposite Emily Watson in Paul Thomas Anderson's largely successful Punch-Drunk Love.

Other projects included the lame Eight Crazy Nights and the more challenging Anger Management with Jack Nicholson.

In 2004, he played a nice-guy chef who falls in love with the Mexican home help (Paz Vega) in Spanglish.