Howie Mandel
by Robin Harvey
Mental Health Central, Moods Magazine & Changing Perceptions
As the energetic yet charming host of one of the most popular game shows in the world, Howie Mandel reaches out and touches millions. So it’s hard to believe that the confident funnyman at the helm of “Deal or No Deal” breaks into a cold sweat at the thought of shaking someone’s hand.
“I have obsessive compulsive disorder,” the Canadian comic, actor, and family man says of the syndrome he’s lived with since childhood. “I am a germaphobic. I am a hypochondriac.”
It’s only relatively recently in his 30-year climb to mega stardom that Mandel chose to go public about his condition. He recently became the public face of OCD in the Anxiety Disorders Association of America’s public education campaign about the disorder.
His message? With treatment, people with OCD can take charge of their lives and live with the disorder and the disorder does not have to take charge of them.
Television critic Rob Salem knew Mandel “as a comer to watch” back when both were trying to crack the Toronto comedy scene, long before Salem found his true calling in entertainment writing. Salem calls the TV star’s decision to go public “a brave move.”
Initially, like some of the more hardened cynics in the industry, Salem wondered if “the OCD thing” was one of Mandel’s bids “to repackage himself.” After all, among his many achievements, Mandel had morphed from a crazed stand-up comic in the late 1970s and early ’80s to a Dr. Wayne Fiscus, the dramatic ensemble player in the late ’80s TV hit series, St. Elsewhere, and in the 1990s had created the animated hit, Bobby’s World, and was the man behind the protagonist’s zany voice. Then, as he is really peaking as an international game show host, he is speaking out about OCD.
There were those in the business who thought it impossible that anyone could make it as far as Mandel with such a disorder—in particular one as severe as Mandel described his when he went public. Especially considering the “social and touchy feely” nature of the entertainment business, Salem says.
But Salem knows Mandel’s story is genuine. “It must have been very, very hard for him all those years. I don’t know how someone could do what he did,” the writer says. “When I see him, I just give him a quick, fast hug or pat on the back. I don’t try to shake his hand.”
Mandel has described his illness as manifesting as an extreme fear of germs, contamination and disease paired with complex rituals to guard against them. It is and has been the biggest barrier in his life.
Like most folks with OCD, he has said his is “waxing and waning” and the degree to which he must follow its attendant actions and rituals varies considerably. He now takes medication, which helps, and goes to therapy when needed. But he believes the condition, which started in childhood, will be life-long.
Those who know Mandel, 53, say his manic energy means he never does anything half way. So they’re not surprised by how frank he has been about the details of his disorder. Details, such as the fact that he never uses public washrooms, which makes for a variety of interesting alternatives. And that the reason he shaves his head is not to look cool, but because it makes him feel cleaner.
And, that for a man who has to travel on the road for weeks at a time, hotels can be a nightmare. So before he stays in a room, it is scanned with a special light. The light is sort of like the ones you see the crime fighters on shows like CSI use and serves a similar function: it detects types of stains and leftover matter that can’t be seen with the naked eye and interfere with Mandel’s required standards of cleanliness. He brings his own sheets, blankets and pillows or a special sleeping bag.
Some days his fear of contamination is so great that he has admitted to spending two and a half hours before starting a Pilate's class “to disinfect the equipment.”
People might think that as a mega-star he would have hired people to do many of these time-consuming tasks for him. But his OCD usually compels him to witness or perform the tasks himself. Steven Brinder, a Toronto-based comic who has known Mandel for more than 30 years, used to be his opening act up until about eight years ago. “He is a truly wonderful man. And he’s always had such high energy and been such a forward-moving person, in his mind, in his actions, and he just loves to be silly,” Brinder says. “I don’t know for sure if I was the first person, outside his family, but he confided in me about his illness well over a dozen years ago. He started telling me about how it affected him one day when we were on a plane together. It seemed to cause him great distress at times when he’d talk about it. But he hid it very well and I was sworn to not tell anyone. It was weird because way back when, before I knew, I noticed he was the first person to start using things like Purell and those hand disinfectants all the time.”
Brinder says Mandel has always been a person who had “a hard time turning it off. Backstage, he’d be there cracking the other comics up, you name it, he did it to get a laugh,” he said. “I never saw him in a depressed state and, for a comic, that is an accomplishment.”
Part of what helps Mandel cope so well, Brinder believes, is his strong connection to his family, wife Terry, and his three children: daughters Jackie and Riley, and his son Alex. “In that way, he is a regular guy. He married his high school sweetheart and she is very, very supportive of him. It gives him that regular life. I know that is a big key to what makes him tick.”
Well, as regular as life can be for Mandel. Next to their family home he has built a smaller sterile home, where he can retreat, should he feel the need, especially if anyone else in the family gets sick.
“Yeah, one of my biggest fears around Howie was what would happen if I sneezed,” Brinder laughs. “I went to great lengths to avoid that.”
But some in the public eye have not been as enlightened as Brinder. Mandel has been the target of the stigma associated with his condition since going public. In one televised, highly public incident in the fall of 2007, former NFL running back Marshall Faulk was interviewing with Mandel on the NFL Network and asked him to shake his hands. Mandel refused and proposed the “fist tap or knuckle bump” he uses on his game show instead. Faulk lifted one hand for the knuckle bump but then simultaneously grabbed Mandel’s other hand and shook it vigorously. A visibly shocked Mandel yelled loudly and walked away. The Network panel then followed up with a few mocking comments about Mandel’s mental health.
More recently, in January, when Mandel ended up in a Toronto hospital with heart irregularities, while filming his new show, Howie Do It, cyber chat was flooded with comments about him being a hypochondriac. But Mandel handles the stigma the way he handles everything in life—and the topic of his OCD in particular—with humour, often directed at himself.
He joked he was so afraid to go into the hospital he stayed on the gurney and kept his parka and galoshes on. And Mandel pulled off a hilarious self parody with MadTV cast member Bobby Lee that largely focused on his OCD.
Born in Toronto, Mandel, a compulsive prankster, was eventually suspended from school for disruptive behaviour. Now he is also part of a public education campaign for Attention Deficit Disorder, which he says is the reason he could not handle school. He admits he has always found it hard to read a script or even have a conversation without interrupting.
Mark Breslin, who founded Toronto’s Yuk Yuk’s comedy club has said that almost all comics have some kind of inner pain, which they work out through comedy, even if they come from the most idyllic childhoods. Yuk Yuk’s is the place where Mandel made his mark.
As Breslin has described it, it took about three months for Mandel to find his footing in his first forays out onto the Yuk Yuk’s stage. Then? “Mandel kicked the whole door open for all of us.”
Mandel has described his childhood as average and normal. It’s his OCD that he’s called the biggest barrier of his life. And now after breaking through doors to achieve new levels for Canadian standup comics, he’s breaking through stereotypes and trying to help open new doors for people like himself, those who are coping with the disorder he’s struggled with since childhood.
“What the heck is normal anyway,” he’s said “You get up each day and you go on with the show.
Robin Harvey is a Toronto freelance journalist, fiction writer and mental health advocate.
by Robin Harvey
Mental Health Central, Moods Magazine & Changing Perceptions
As the energetic yet charming host of one of the most popular game shows in the world, Howie Mandel reaches out and touches millions. So it’s hard to believe that the confident funnyman at the helm of “Deal or No Deal” breaks into a cold sweat at the thought of shaking someone’s hand.
“I have obsessive compulsive disorder,” the Canadian comic, actor, and family man says of the syndrome he’s lived with since childhood. “I am a germaphobic. I am a hypochondriac.”
It’s only relatively recently in his 30-year climb to mega stardom that Mandel chose to go public about his condition. He recently became the public face of OCD in the Anxiety Disorders Association of America’s public education campaign about the disorder.
His message? With treatment, people with OCD can take charge of their lives and live with the disorder and the disorder does not have to take charge of them.
Television critic Rob Salem knew Mandel “as a comer to watch” back when both were trying to crack the Toronto comedy scene, long before Salem found his true calling in entertainment writing. Salem calls the TV star’s decision to go public “a brave move.”
Initially, like some of the more hardened cynics in the industry, Salem wondered if “the OCD thing” was one of Mandel’s bids “to repackage himself.” After all, among his many achievements, Mandel had morphed from a crazed stand-up comic in the late 1970s and early ’80s to a Dr. Wayne Fiscus, the dramatic ensemble player in the late ’80s TV hit series, St. Elsewhere, and in the 1990s had created the animated hit, Bobby’s World, and was the man behind the protagonist’s zany voice. Then, as he is really peaking as an international game show host, he is speaking out about OCD.
There were those in the business who thought it impossible that anyone could make it as far as Mandel with such a disorder—in particular one as severe as Mandel described his when he went public. Especially considering the “social and touchy feely” nature of the entertainment business, Salem says.
But Salem knows Mandel’s story is genuine. “It must have been very, very hard for him all those years. I don’t know how someone could do what he did,” the writer says. “When I see him, I just give him a quick, fast hug or pat on the back. I don’t try to shake his hand.”
Mandel has described his illness as manifesting as an extreme fear of germs, contamination and disease paired with complex rituals to guard against them. It is and has been the biggest barrier in his life.
Like most folks with OCD, he has said his is “waxing and waning” and the degree to which he must follow its attendant actions and rituals varies considerably. He now takes medication, which helps, and goes to therapy when needed. But he believes the condition, which started in childhood, will be life-long.
Those who know Mandel, 53, say his manic energy means he never does anything half way. So they’re not surprised by how frank he has been about the details of his disorder. Details, such as the fact that he never uses public washrooms, which makes for a variety of interesting alternatives. And that the reason he shaves his head is not to look cool, but because it makes him feel cleaner.
And, that for a man who has to travel on the road for weeks at a time, hotels can be a nightmare. So before he stays in a room, it is scanned with a special light. The light is sort of like the ones you see the crime fighters on shows like CSI use and serves a similar function: it detects types of stains and leftover matter that can’t be seen with the naked eye and interfere with Mandel’s required standards of cleanliness. He brings his own sheets, blankets and pillows or a special sleeping bag.
Some days his fear of contamination is so great that he has admitted to spending two and a half hours before starting a Pilate's class “to disinfect the equipment.”
People might think that as a mega-star he would have hired people to do many of these time-consuming tasks for him. But his OCD usually compels him to witness or perform the tasks himself. Steven Brinder, a Toronto-based comic who has known Mandel for more than 30 years, used to be his opening act up until about eight years ago. “He is a truly wonderful man. And he’s always had such high energy and been such a forward-moving person, in his mind, in his actions, and he just loves to be silly,” Brinder says. “I don’t know for sure if I was the first person, outside his family, but he confided in me about his illness well over a dozen years ago. He started telling me about how it affected him one day when we were on a plane together. It seemed to cause him great distress at times when he’d talk about it. But he hid it very well and I was sworn to not tell anyone. It was weird because way back when, before I knew, I noticed he was the first person to start using things like Purell and those hand disinfectants all the time.”
Brinder says Mandel has always been a person who had “a hard time turning it off. Backstage, he’d be there cracking the other comics up, you name it, he did it to get a laugh,” he said. “I never saw him in a depressed state and, for a comic, that is an accomplishment.”
Part of what helps Mandel cope so well, Brinder believes, is his strong connection to his family, wife Terry, and his three children: daughters Jackie and Riley, and his son Alex. “In that way, he is a regular guy. He married his high school sweetheart and she is very, very supportive of him. It gives him that regular life. I know that is a big key to what makes him tick.”
Well, as regular as life can be for Mandel. Next to their family home he has built a smaller sterile home, where he can retreat, should he feel the need, especially if anyone else in the family gets sick.
“Yeah, one of my biggest fears around Howie was what would happen if I sneezed,” Brinder laughs. “I went to great lengths to avoid that.”
But some in the public eye have not been as enlightened as Brinder. Mandel has been the target of the stigma associated with his condition since going public. In one televised, highly public incident in the fall of 2007, former NFL running back Marshall Faulk was interviewing with Mandel on the NFL Network and asked him to shake his hands. Mandel refused and proposed the “fist tap or knuckle bump” he uses on his game show instead. Faulk lifted one hand for the knuckle bump but then simultaneously grabbed Mandel’s other hand and shook it vigorously. A visibly shocked Mandel yelled loudly and walked away. The Network panel then followed up with a few mocking comments about Mandel’s mental health.
More recently, in January, when Mandel ended up in a Toronto hospital with heart irregularities, while filming his new show, Howie Do It, cyber chat was flooded with comments about him being a hypochondriac. But Mandel handles the stigma the way he handles everything in life—and the topic of his OCD in particular—with humour, often directed at himself.
He joked he was so afraid to go into the hospital he stayed on the gurney and kept his parka and galoshes on. And Mandel pulled off a hilarious self parody with MadTV cast member Bobby Lee that largely focused on his OCD.
Born in Toronto, Mandel, a compulsive prankster, was eventually suspended from school for disruptive behaviour. Now he is also part of a public education campaign for Attention Deficit Disorder, which he says is the reason he could not handle school. He admits he has always found it hard to read a script or even have a conversation without interrupting.
Mark Breslin, who founded Toronto’s Yuk Yuk’s comedy club has said that almost all comics have some kind of inner pain, which they work out through comedy, even if they come from the most idyllic childhoods. Yuk Yuk’s is the place where Mandel made his mark.
As Breslin has described it, it took about three months for Mandel to find his footing in his first forays out onto the Yuk Yuk’s stage. Then? “Mandel kicked the whole door open for all of us.”
Mandel has described his childhood as average and normal. It’s his OCD that he’s called the biggest barrier of his life. And now after breaking through doors to achieve new levels for Canadian standup comics, he’s breaking through stereotypes and trying to help open new doors for people like himself, those who are coping with the disorder he’s struggled with since childhood.
“What the heck is normal anyway,” he’s said “You get up each day and you go on with the show.
Robin Harvey is a Toronto freelance journalist, fiction writer and mental health advocate.
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