Michael Anthony Bell II (born August 10, 1983), known professionally as Tone Bell, is an American

stand-up comedian Stand-up comedy is a comedy, comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, a comic or a stand-up. Stand-up comedy consists of One-line joke ...

and

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

Early life

Bell was born in

Decatur, Georgia Decatur is a city in, and the county seat of, DeKalb County, Georgia, which is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. With a population of 24,928 in the 2020 census, the municipality is sometimes assumed to be larger since multiple ZIP Codes in ...

. He taught first grade before working on the production of

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

's '' Warm Springs'' and doing other various promo work. Bell took a job in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

as a brand manager with Swivel Media for a year, before moving back to Atlanta. There he started doing promotion work for a beer company that eventually transferred him to

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

where he started doing open-mics at various comedy clubs.

Career

Shortly after moving to Los Angeles, Bell won the NBC Stand Up For Diversity Talent Search in 2012 and was awarded a development deal from the network. He was cast as "RJ" the bartender in the NBC sitcom '' Whitney'' and later as "Tedward" in NBC's ''

Bad Judge ''Bad Judge'' is an American legal sitcom television series co-created by Chad Kultgen and Anne Heche. Kultgen and Heche also serve as executive producers, along with Will Ferrell, Kate Walsh, Adam McKay, Chris Henchy, Betsy Thomas, and Jill ...

.'' Bell also appeared in other TV shows, including

VH1 VH1 (originally an initialism of Video Hits One) is an American basic cable television network based in New York City and owned by Paramount Global. It was created by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, at the time a division of Warner Commun ...

's '' Single Ladies'', E!'s ''

Love You, Mean It with Whitney Cummings ''Love You, Mean It with Whitney Cummings'' was a weekly American talk show series that was broadcast on E!. The series premiered on November 28, 2012. E! initially ordered six episodes of the series and later agreed for six more episodes in Janu ...

'',

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy programming ...

's ''

Key and Peele ''Key & Peele'' (abbreviated to ''K&P'') is an American sketch comedy television series created by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele for Comedy Central. Both Key and Peele previously worked on ''Mad TV.'' Each episode of the show consists ...

'' and

Game Show Network Game Show Network (GSN) is an American basic cable channel owned by Sony Pictures Television. The channel's programming is primarily dedicated to game shows, including reruns of acquired game shows, along with new, first-run original and revive ...

's ''

Mind of a Man ''Mind of a Man'' is a game show broadcast by Game Show Network, with DeRay Davis as host. On each episode, two female contestants attempt to figure out what men believe about marriage, dating, work, and other subjects. Similar to ''Family Feud' ...

'' and hosted the first season of hidden camera show ''Jerks with Cameras'' on

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

. Bell also has a web series on

Russell Simmons Russell Wendell Simmons (born October 4, 1957) is an American entrepreneur, writer and record executive. He co-founded the hip-hop label Def Jam Recordings, and created the clothing fashion lines Phat Farm, Argyleculture, and Tantris. Simmons' ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel All Def Digital called ''The Green Room''. In March 2018, Bell was cast in a lead role for the CBS comedy pilot '' Fam'' after having starred in the Netflix multi-camera comedy ''

Disjointed ''Disjointed'' is an American television sitcom created by David Javerbaum and Chuck Lorre and starring Kathy Bates. Twenty episodes of the series were ordered from Warner Bros. by Netflix, with the first 10 episodes premiering on August 25, 2017 ...

''. Bell is the host of the new Netflix reality show ''Drink Masters'', which premiered October 28, 2022.

Filmography

Films

Television series

References

External links

Official website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, Tone 1983 births Living people American male film actors American male television actors American male voice actors American stand-up comedians African-American male comedians American male comedians African-American game show hosts African-American male actors Male actors from Atlanta People from Decatur, Georgia 21st-century American comedians 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people