Jaleel White

Jaleel Ahmad White is a former child star best known for his role as super-dork Steve Urkel on the 1990s family sitcom, Family Matters.

White has born on November 27, 1976 in Pasadena, California. White started his acting career in TV commercials and guest starring roles on TV shows. At the age of three White appeared in a commercial for Kellogg’s and in other commercials after his preschool teacher persuaded his parents to take him to auditions. During the mid-1980s he had guest starring roles on TV shows such as The Jeffersons, Mr. Belvedere, and in the pilot episode of Good Morning, Miss Bliss. His first recurring TV role was as the son of Flip Wilson and Gladys Knight on the CBS series Charlie and Company.

White hit the big time and became a huge star in 1989, when he was cast as the dorky Steve Urkel on the ABC Friday night sitcom, Family Matters. The Steve Urkel character was the next-door-neighbor of the Winslow family, around whom the show revolved. Steve Urkel was in love with Laura Winslow, the little girl in the Winslow family. White was initially supposed to only appear occasionally on the show as Steve Urkel.

However, during his initial guest appearance, White received a standing ovation for his performance as Steve Urkel and drew approving chants from a group of college fraternity brothers who were in the studio audience. White claims to have created the role by borrowing his dentist father's dental glasses, hiking up his pants, bending his knees, and speaking in a high-pitched geeky tone. He was given a full-time starring role, and soon became the favorite TV character during the run of the series.

Steve Urkel was the Dustin "Screech" Diamond of the black community. However, unlike Screech, the Steve Urkel character was occasionally quite funny and people tuned in to watch his antics. Family Matters was a huge hit in the early 1990s, primarily due to the Urkel character. Urkel would always bug the Carl Winslow, the father and head of the Winslow family, and would often break things or screw something up and then say in a nasally voice, "Did I do that???"

When Family Matters began in 1989, White has a short and skinny kid. However, by the mid-1990s he had grown several inches taller and had gone through puberty. Still wanting to cash in on the Urkel character, the show's producers made White continue to talk in a high-pitched voice and be an annoying nerd even though he was a young man by the mid-1990s.

The last several seasons of Family Matters were horrendous. One of the storylines was that Urkel built a transformation chamber, which allowed him to change from the nerdy Steven Urkel into the hip and suave ladies man, Stefan Urquelle. This was quite possibly the stupidest storyline since the Flintstones added The Great Gazoo, an alien that only Fred Flintstone could see.

By the show's final season, he was commanding $100,000 per episode. Unfortunately for White, he was so tightly defined by his Urkel character that it became hard for him to get other roles after the show's run completed. White did manage to secure a starring role on Grown Ups, a sitcom on the UPN from 1999-2000. However, Grown Ups received terrible ratings and was cancelled after just one season.

White has had to settle for minor roles in movies and TV shows such as Miracle Dogs Too, Who Made the Potatoe Salad?, Dreamgirls, and Boston Legal. Although he did act on the Grown Ups show after Family Matters ended, White has not have any significant roles. He has been forever typecast as Urkel and there probably isn't anything he can do to break out of it.

White is definitely no longer the cute kid he was at the beginning of Family Matters. Like many formerly cute child stars, White grew up to somewhat weird-looking. As an adult, his eyes look sunken and puffy, almost as though someone punched him in the eyes, as shown below:







White was also the subject on an Internet rumor a few years ago. Many people received an e-mail that purported to show White prancing around as a raging homosexual at a party with other gay men. Here are some of the pictures that were being e-mailed across the Internet:





As it turns out, the man in the photos was not Jaleel White. Instead, it was simply an Atlanta hairdresser who had an uncanny resemblance to White. For this and the other reasons discussed above, Jaleel White is without a doubt one washed-up celebrity!

*** UPDATE - July 9, 2010 ***

Jaleel White is being investigated by the police for allegedly beating a woman. Supposedly the woman who was hit is Bridget Hardy, the mother of White's child. According to TMZ, the alleged victim claims White punched her in one of her surgically enhanced breasts while driving along the Pacific Coast Highway two weeks ago, while an infant was riding in the car. The woman also claims that White slapped her when they arrived at home and then pushed her into a toilet so forcefully that it broke the toilet tank.

The composite picture below shows White and Hardy. (White seems to look far older than 33 in the photo below).



*** UPDATE - September 4, 2011 ***

I recently discovered that there are rumors of a gay sex tape involving Jaleel White and former NBA star Anfernee ("Penny") Hardaway. According to the rumor, many NBA players have viewed copies of the gay sex tape. White has denied the rumors and claimed that Penny Hardaway was like a big brother to him. [The audio clip of White's denial is available on this site.]