Westgate Hotel at the Comedy Cabaret – Co-headlining with David Del Rosario
“If you break the ground, can you walk on it?” is the question actor and comedian Jason Stuart asks, as he celebrates the 30th year anniversary of “coming out” on the GERALDO SHOW in 1993. Watch the clip from the Geraldo Show .
He spoke the words “I’m gay, deal with it!” on TV long before other stars like Ellen DeGeneres, Ricky Martin, Wanda Sykes, Rosie O’Donnell, and Matt Boomer joined him. He came out at a time when there was no playbook on how to be an openly gay artist in the US, much less in Hollywood.
The son of a Holocaust survivor and a beautician, he created a successful career in an industry where appearing to be gay man was an invitation to the unemployment line. However, Jason would not take no for an answer – in fact, it made him work harder. His father, a Jewish immigrant, always told him (in a thick Polish accent), “When you go to the interview, wear a tie and show them you mean business”. Jason took that to mean ‘be your best self’ – and that is what he strove to be.
Jason received the Indie Series Award for Best Actor in a Comedy for the Amazon series SMOTHERED in 2022, which he also co-created with Mitch Hara. “When I heard the news that I won, I was filled with emotions. As I grow older, the idea of being acknowledged by my peers means a great deal to me.”
Season 2 will be out in the Spring back on Amazon & Revry with notable guest stars Amanda Bearse, Jai Rodriguez, Armand Fields, Aida Rodriguez, Carol Ita White and Robert Costanzo to name a few. Sneak Peak of SMOTHERED season 2 Soon after, he won the Worldwide Comedy Award for BEST LGBTQ Comedian, and was honored in the 100 OUT for the prestigious Out Magazine. He will also be taping the LAUGH PROUD Comedy Event for filmmaker Quentin Lee.
Jason’s accomplishments are wide and varied. He has almost 265 film and TV credits to his name as a character actor and comedian, from a plantation owner in the historical drama THE BIRTH OF A NATION to the head of a drug company in David E. Kelly’s series GOLIATH starring Billy Bob Thornton. Fans laugh out loud at his work as a therapist on MY WIFE & KIDS, and in LOVE (from Ex. Producer Judd Apatow).
They couldn’t get enough of him playing powerless managers on THE CLOSER opposite Kyra Sedgwick and the indie hit TANGERINE. Jason has worked opposite everyone in Hollywood from Oscar winners J.K. Simmons, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Faye Dunaway! He has also worked with film & TV icons Arnold Schwarzenegger, Angela Landsbury and Damon Wayans.
Jason’s autobiography, SHUT UP, I’M TALKING! came out to rave reviews on Amazon and is now in its 3rd printing. He co-wrote the book with Dan Duffy. Jason has led the way for 30 years, starting with that daytime TV show appearance on the GERALDO SHOW. Taking a risk and telling his truth- long before it was safe for anyone gay to come out. He was also the first out LGBTQ comedian to have a stand-up comedy special on HERE MEDIA, titled MAKING IT TO THE MIDDLE.
He currently co-chairs the National SAG AFTRA LGBTQ committee with Traci Godfrey, which he co-created with Duncan Crabtree Ireland to support his fellow artists. You can find him keeping a loving eye on his 86-year-old Jewish mother. For the record he jokes, “I do not live with my mother, she lives next door! We look forward to the future and its possibilities…
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