David Brian Ury (born September 30, 1973) is an American actor, stand-up comedian,

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influe ...

, and Japanese translation specialist.

Early life and education

Ury was born and raised in

Sonoma, California Sonoma is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Sonoma is one of the principal cities of California's Wine Country and the center of the Sonoma Valley AVA. Sonoma's p ...

. He graduated from

Sonoma Valley High School Sonoma Valley High School (SVHS) is a public high school located in Sonoma, California with approximately 1,300 students as of 2017. It was founded in 1891 and held its first commencement in 1894. It moved to its current campus in 1922. Since t ...

, where he acted in theatre productions. He earned a bachelor's degree in linguistics at

Evergreen State College The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a p ...

Olympia, Washington Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat and largest city of Thurston County. It is southwest of the state's most populous city, Seattle, and is a cultural center of the southern Puget Sound region. Europea ...

and studied abroad in Japan, where he became fluent in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

. Ury is a descendant of

German Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

impressionist painter Lesser Ury.

Career

Since studying abroad in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, Ury and has worked as a translator in film, television, and manga and currently () translates and writes English adaptations for manga. Ury moved to Los Angeles in August 2001 where he began performing stand-up comedy. Cartoonist Keith Knight, a neighbor of his, described Ury's acting career as "Spooge man" and "a cavalcade of

reprobate Reprobation, in Christian theology, is a doctrine which teaches that a person can reject the gospel to a point where God in turn rejects them and curses their conscience. The English word ''reprobate'' is from the Latin root ''probare'' (''Engl ...

s, sleazeballs, derelicts, & weirdos."

Appearances

TV Series and Movies

Ury has made several film and television appearances, including an episode of

Tim Kring Richard Timothy Kring (born July 9, 1957) is an American screenwriter and television producer, best known for his creation of the drama series '' Strange World'', ''Crossing Jordan'', '' Heroes'', and ''Touch''. Early life Kring was born in El D ...

's ''

Crossing Jordan ''Crossing Jordan'' is an American crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its dete ...

'' and in ''

Shoot 'Em Up Shoot 'em ups (also known as shmups or STGs ) are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of charac ...

''. He also appeared in ''

Heroes Heroes or Héroes may refer to: * Hero, one who displays courage and self-sacrifice for the greater good Film * ''Heroes'' (1977 film), an American drama * ''Heroes'' (2008 film), an Indian Hindi film Gaming * ''Heroes of Might and Magic'' ...

'', '' Malcolm in the Middle'', ''

Life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...

'', ''

Without a Trace ''Without a Trace'' is an American police procedural drama television series created by Hank Steinberg that aired on CBS from September 26, 2002 to May 19, 2009 with the total of seven seasons and 160 episodes. The series focuses the cases of ...

'', '' Breaking Bad'', ''

Better Call Saul ''Better Call Saul'' is an American crime and legal drama television series created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. Part of the ''Breaking Bad'' franchise, it is a spin-off of Gilligan's previous series, ''Breaking Bad'', and serves as a ...

'', ''

Zeke and Luther Zeke is a masculine given name and nickname, sometimes a shortened form (hypocorism) of Ezekiel, which may refer to: People * Caleb Bailey (nickname "Zeke", 1898-1957), US Marine Corps brigadier general and athlete *Zeke Bella (1930–2013), Amer ...

'', and '' The Librarians''. In March 2015, Ury was cast for Rob Zombie's slasher film 31 as Schizo-Head. A character actor, Ury has died on screen in almost every role he has portrayed.

YouTube

Ury also has several YouTube channels/accounts/personalities and alter-egos, which include ''Karaoke Steve'' and ''Ken Tanaka,'' the fictional adopted twin brother of David Ury. Tanaka is described as an Ashkenazi Jewish man adopted as an infant by Japanese parents Hideo and Mari Tanaka, and raised in Shimane Prefecture of Japan; he returns to Los Angeles to find his birth parents Jonathan and Linda Smith.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

References

External links

*
David Ury
at the ISBN Database
Ken Tanaka
at the ISBN Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Ury, David 1973 births Living people Jewish American male actors Male actors from California American male film actors American male television actors People from Sonoma, California 21st-century American Jews Male YouTubers Japanese translators American expatriates in Japan