Dana Carvey

Born: 1955
Where: Missoula, Montana, USA

Best known as Mike Myers' sidekick in the Wayne's World phenomenon, Carvey is yet another graduate of the Saturday Night Live school of comedy.

Famous for his dead-on (if somewhat toothless) impersonations of such notables as George Bush, Ross Perot, James Stewart and Johnny Carson, Carvey began his career performing stand-up around the San Francisco Bay area.

In 1981, he moved to LA to work as an actor and began with small turns in Halloween II and This Is Spinal Tap before joining the SNL ensemble in 1986.

He tried his hand as a leading man in the flop Opportunity Knocks but had great success when he teamed with Myers to make Wayne's World, a film version of a sketch he and Myers had performed.

This success laid the foundation for Carvey's crossover to the more refined genre of romantic comedy: in Clean Slate he played an amnesiac private investigator opposite Italian lovebird Valeria Golino.

Carvey returned to series TV in 1996 with the short-lived Dana Carvey Show, which created controversy when sponsors Taco Bell and Pizza Hut found the "edgy" content offensive.

Carvey laid low for the next several years, being minimally involved in fellow SNL alumni projects, such as playing the referee in Adam Sandler's film Little Nicky.

He returned to the big screen with Master of Disguise, a weak movie which nevertheless allowed him to indulge his gift for mimicry.