Topic: Steve Guttenberg

Steven Robert "Steve" Guttenberg (born August 24, 1958) is an American actor and comedian. He became well known during the 1980s, after a series of starring roles in major Hollywood films, including Cocoon, Three Men and a Baby, Police Academy, and Short Circuit.

Guttenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Ann Iris (née Newman), and Jerome Stanley Guttenberg, an electrical engineer. He was in a family of five which included two sisters. He had a Jewish upbringing and grew up in North Massapequa, New York, where he graduated from Plainedge High School in 1976. He attended The Juilliard School, State University of New York at Albany, and the University of California at Los Angeles.

His studies, which include years with teacher Herbert Berghof and with the improvisational comedy school, The Groundlings, took him to such theaters as the Helen Hayes on Broadway, where he was cast in the lead role in Prelude to a Kiss and The Comedy. He was also on the stage in London's West End, where he starred in The Boys Next Door. He won kudos in the world stage premiere production of Furthest From the Sun, which Woody Harrelson directed and co-authored. Guttenberg has also appeared on TV. His television films include the critically acclaimed Miracle on Ice (1981), To Race the Wind (1980), Something for Joey (1977) and the controversial nuclear holocaust picture, The Day After (1983). Prior to becoming well known, Guttenberg played the title role in the short-lived 1979 sitcom Billy as a teenage boy with a Walter Mitty complex. In 1980, he starred in a Coca-Cola commercial that featured him trying to help a non-English-speaking woman whose car had stalled. They share a common bond in their love of Coke. 1980 also saw Guttenberg star in the Nancy Walker-directed movie Can't Stop the Music---a semi-autobiographical movie about the disco group The Village People.