Bill Zucker
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William Cary Zucker (October 7, 1955 – September 19, 2016) was an American actor, comedian, writer, performer and musician.


Early life

William (Bill) Carey Zucker was born in
Springfield, Massachusetts Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the ...
. From the age of nine, he began performing piano recitals in public, and soon started to score his own compositions. By age eleven, he had formed a garage band called "The Divided Line," in which he played the drums. He would jam regularly with the band until the age of fifteen, when he picked up his first guitar and wrote a song called "Show Me," about a break-up with his childhood sweetheart. Throughout high school Zucker would write guitar compositions. After high school, Zucker was accepted into the
Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...
. After graduating from Berklee, he moved to
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
for 3 years, so that he could attend
Western Washington University Western Washington University (WWU or Western) is a public university in Bellingham, Washington. The northernmost university in the contiguous United States, WWU was founded in 1893 as the state-funded New Whatcom Normal School, succeeding a pri ...
. While there, he hosted his own campus radio show. After graduating Zucker became the front man for a country-rock band called "Colraine" and toured across America. Once the tour was over, he moved to
Hollywood California Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...
.


Career

In Hollywood, Zucker teamed up with musician friend
Ron Fair Ronald Fair is an American A&R executive, record producer, record executive, musical arranger, recording engineer and conductor. In a career that has spanned over 30 years at major record labels he has produced and arranged hits for several art ...
to write songs for
Paramount Music Paramount Music is an American record label. It serves as the in-house label for film and television music across all divisions of Paramount Pictures. Soundtracks See also * List of record labels * Paramount Records (1969) Paramount Record ...
. Zucker then began working at NBC Studios as a production staff member for The
Steve Allen Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen (December 26, 1921 – October 30, 2000) was an American television personality, radio personality, musician, composer, actor, comedian, and writer. In 1954, he achieved national fame as the co-cre ...
Comedy Hour, a premier late night TV show. He then joined the writing team at the Barbara Mandrell Show. Next Zucker formed the touring band "Cruise Control" that later evolved into "BZB" (The Bill Zucker Band). The BZB featured Zucker on lead vocals and he would alternate between playing the guitar, drums, harmonica, fiddle and keyboard/synthesizer. Zucker wrote over 300 original songs for the "BZB.”


2000–2009

In early 2000 Zucker moved to
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
to record a 12-song CD entitled ''Millennium.'' The music distributor that Zucker had thought would release ''Millennium'' though, did not follow up with him . As a result, ''Millennium'' was not internationally distributed. Zucker then moved to
Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
, and released the album independently. Zucker went on to record two albums, ''Stranded'' and ''Every Window'', that he also independently released through his website. While in Florida Zucker opened and ran several small businesses. Including a limousine rental company, and a nightclub in Miami called Z Street. Zucker regularly performed at Z Street.


Satirical Works

Zucker was severely affected by the
2008 Financial Crisis 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...
. After having invested heavily in the stock market, and real estate. The crash, and ensuing
bank bailout A bailout is the provision of financial help to a corporation or country which otherwise would be on the brink of bankruptcy. A bailout differs from the term ''bail-in'' (coined in 2010) under which the bondholders or depositors of global syst ...
, inspired him to write and record The TARP Song. Criticising the
too big to fail "Too big to fail" (TBTF) and "too big to jail" is a theory in banking and finance that asserts that certain corporations, particularly financial institutions, are so large and so interconnected that their failure would be disastrous to the great ...
concept of banking. Zucker sent copies of The TARP Song music video to several news stations. It was shown in certain news segments on CNBC, FOX, VH1, MSNBC Zucker then wrote another comedy song satirising the use of social media called ''The Twitter Song''. The music video featured clips submitted by Zucker’s fans, as well as video produced by Zucker himself.


Later Career and Death

Zucker wrote the first installment of ''The Kelsey Grammer Bill Zucker Comedy Hour''http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20100204006099/en/Bill-Zucker/Frasier/Kelsey-Grammer The first 3 episodes were broadcast on Kelseylive.com in early 2010. The show received poor reviews and no further episodes were made. Zucker produced ''A Day with the Simmons family'' in which Zucker spent the day at the family home of KISS musician
Gene Simmons Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz; he, חיים ויץ, ; born August 25, 1949) is an Israeli-American musician. Also known by his stage persona The Demon, he is the bassist and co-lead singer of Kiss, the hard rock band he co-founded with Paul ...
and his partner
Shannon Tweed Shannon Lee Tweed Simmons (born March 10, 1957) is a Canadian actress and model. One of the most successful actresses of mainstream erotica, she is identified with the genre of the erotic thriller. Tweed has appeared in more than 60 films and i ...
. Zucker filmed two parody episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter entitled ''Dog the Bounty Hunter Hunts Bill Zucker,'' and ''Dog the TP hunter.'' Both released on Zucker’s YouTube channel. In 2011 Zucker released music videos for some of his new songs: ''The Answer'', ''Summer Girl'', ''Friends'', and ''Shannon'', – the latter being a wedding present to his friends Gene Simmons and Shannon Tweed. He then recorded ''Rock and Roll Hair'' which featured
Kelsey Grammer Allen Kelsey Grammer (born February 21, 1955) is an American actor and producer. He gained notoriety and acclaim for his role as psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane on the NBC sitcom '' Cheers'' (1984-1993) and its spin-off ''Frasier'' (1993-2004), ...
and
Scott Baio Scott Vincent James Baio (; born September 22, 1960) is an American actor. He is known for playing Chachi Arcola on the sitcom ''Happy Days'' (1977–1984) and its spin-off ''Joanie Loves Chachi'' (1982–1983), the title character on ...
. In early 2012 Zucker moved to Hollywood from Miami, to concentrate on filming new television and film projects. Also in 2012 Zucker released a new studio album called ''Half the Man EP''. The video for the title track ''Half The Man'' starred the actress, presenter and playboy model,
Jenny McCarthy Jennifer McCarthy Wahlberg (' Jennifer Ann McCarthy; born November 1, 1972) is an American actress, model, and television personality. She began her career in 1993 as a nude model for ''Playboy'' magazine and was later named their Playmate of ...
as his love interest. This was Jenny McCarthy's first music video. Jenny McCarthy also appeared in another Bill Zucker video briefly as a woman who admits she is stalking Bill Zucker. Bill Zucker appeared on episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter,
Gene Simmons Family Jewels ''Gene Simmons Family Jewels'' is an American reality television series that premiered on A&E on August 7, 2006. It follows Kiss bassist and vocalist Gene Simmons, his longtime partner and wife Shannon Tweed, and their two children, Nick and Sop ...
, and
Beverly Hills Pawn ''Beverly Hills Pawn'' is an American TV show filmed in Beverly Hills, California. Description It is filmed in The Dina Collection pawn shop owned by Yossi Dina who appears on the show along with his employees Aria, Cory, and manager Dominique. L ...
. Bill Zucker's last television appearance was as a guest on
The John Kerwin Show ''The John Kerwin Show'' was an American monthly talk show filmed in Los Angeles, California. The show was broadcast on JLTV, and featured on YouTube. History The John Kerwin Show was originally formatted as a late-night talk show. Beginning in ...
. Followed by a role in the movie "Beverly Hills Christmas" starring
Dean Cain Dean George Cain ( Tanaka; born July 31, 1966) is an American actor. From 1993 to 1997, he played Clark Kent / Superman in the TV series '' Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman''. Cain was the host of ''Ripley's Believe It or Not!'' and ...
. Zucker died of a heart attack in the early morning of September 19th 2016, in his Hollywood apartment. He was 60 years old.


References


External links

* http://www.facebook.com/mrbillzucker * * http://www.reverbnation.com/billzucker * https://twitter.com/BillZucker {{DEFAULTSORT:Zucker, Bill American male composers American composers Berklee College of Music alumni Western Washington University alumni 1955 births 2016 deaths