Background
Fred Norris is the son of Valija and Henry Nukis who were Latvian immigrants. By the time Fred, the second of two sons, was born, his parents" marriage was already troubled.
Fred Norris is the son of Valija and Henry Nukis who were Latvian immigrants. By the time Fred, the second of two sons, was born, his parents" marriage was already troubled.
He first met Howard Stern while working at WCCC-FM, a radio station in Hartford, Connecticut. Fred was raised in Manchester, Connecticut. "There was always tension and rage," Norris remembers.
"My father had an alcohol problem.
When Dad came home, you hid in the closet because there was always something going on you"d rather not be a part of." Fred spent most of his early childhood alone. So Fred would escape by reading books, taking long bicycle rides, or watching lots of afternoon television reruns (whence came his encyclopedic knowledge of classic fifties television).
"I"d like to state for the record that every person on this show of Howard"s, even Robin, at least had a father figure to guide them," he says. "Maine, I was on my own."
Despite the lack of guidance, Norris managed to navigate his adolescence without major incident.
Around this time he began playing guitar.
A college student at the time, Norris first met Howard Stern while working the overnight shifts at WCCC, an Department of Administration and Management and FM radio station in Hartford, Connecticut in the spring of 1979. He continued at WCCC after Stern"s departure, though left the station in early 1981 to take a job at WAQY-FM in Springfield, Massachusetts. When Stern became a ratings hit at WWDC in Washington, District of Columbia that year, he was able to use his success as leverage to convince the station to hire Norris, who started as the producer on Stern"s show in October 1981.
He later moved with Stern to New York to work at W National Broadcasting Company in September 1982, and has been with the show ever since.
Fred has also appeared in several small television and movie roles. He played a younger version of himself in Private Parts in 1997.
He played a meter maid in Cruel Intentions in 1999. Most recently, he portrayed a pawn shop owner named Leon, on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit in 2013.