Background
Cummings was born and raised in Georgetown, Washington, District of Columbia Her mother is Patti Cummings, a former public relations director at Neiman Marcus at Mazza Gallerie.
Actor model screenwriter film producer
Cummings was born and raised in Georgetown, Washington, District of Columbia Her mother is Patti Cummings, a former public relations director at Neiman Marcus at Mazza Gallerie.
She studied acting at Washington, District of Columbia’s Studio Theater. Cummings graduated from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, magna cum laude in 2004 with a degree in Communications.
She is known as the creator and star of the National Broadcasting Company sitcom Whitney, as well as the co-creator of the Columbia Broadcasting System sitcom 2 Broke Girls. Her parents divorced when she was 5 years old. She has an older half-brother named Kevin Cummings, and an older sister, Ashley Cummings.
She was a model before becoming an actress.
She went to Holy Trinity School. She went to high school at Saint Andrew"s Episcopal School, Potomac, Maryland, graduating in 2000.
She interned at local National Broadcasting Company news affiliate World Rally Championship-television (Channel 4) as a journalist. Acting Cummings moved to Los Angeles after college and worked on Punk"d on Music Television in 2004 and the same year starred in a low-budget thriller, Electronic Medical Record, which was screened at Cannes.
Stand-up She began performing stand-up in 2004.
In 2007, Variety named Cummings one of 10 Comics to Watch in 2007. In 2008, Cummings appeared in the San Francisco audition for Last Comic Standing, although she didn"t pass the showcase. She performed on The Tonight Show with Conan O"Brien, and Last Call with Carson Daly.
She co-starred on The Tony Rock Project and appeared in the 2008 movie Made of Honor.
She has also made several appearances on the East! show Chelsea Lately on its round table. She hosted the 2008 Sundance Festival Dailies.
She was named one of 12 Rising Stars of Comedy by Entertainment Weekly in 2008. Her television appearances have included Comedians of Chelsea Lately, Live Nude Comedy (which she created, starred and wrote for), The Very bad Show, truTV Presents: World"s Dumbest.., and the Comedy Central Roasts of Joan Rivers, David Hasselhoff and Donald Trump.
She released her debut stand-up album, Emotional Ninja.
In August 2010, her first one-hour special premiered on Comedy Central titled Whitney Cummings: Money Shot. In 2010 Cummings went on tour with Denis Leary and the Rescue Maine Comedy Tour to promote the show"s 6th season. She also appeared with Leary on Douchebags and Donuts.
In June 2014, Cummings did her second hour-long special, I Love You, on Comedy Central.
Cummings has described her comedic influences, beginning with Paul Reiser, who she said "made these hysterical, brilliant commentary about the most mundane things and open it up to a hysterical world." Other important influences for her were George Carlin, Bill Cosby—whose show she says she watched regularly "because so much of that was based on his stand up.." Later influences were Dave Attell —"a legend now but he’s very edgy," Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks.
Quotations: "made these hysterical, brilliant commentary about the most mundane things and open it up to a hysterical world.".