Samuel T. Wilkinson: Pot-Smoking And the Schizophrenia Connection

It takes less than two minutes into a conversation with Howie Mandel for the comedian to offhandedly refer to himself as “neurotic.”

It’s a common enough term in the world of comedy. Even if the energetic 56-year-old had not revealed his real-life mental health issues in a recent autobiography — including suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, mysophobia (a pathological fear of germs) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder — he would perfectly fit the part of the neurotic comedian. He speaks quickly. He veers wildly from topic to topic. He’s self-deprecating and prone to quoting Woody Allen.

So it’s not surprising that the North York-born entertainer’s response to being awarded the prestigious Award of Distinction at this year Banff World Media Festival is, by his own admission, a little . . . neurotic.

“You start reflecting,” says Mandel, in an interview from his home in Los Angeles. “Is this it? Is it a goodbye to my career? I have no idea. It’s very foreign to me. I didn’t get into this business to be an award-winning person. It’s the opposite, everything I’ve ever been punished for, expelled for, hit for is what I seem to get paid for today. I got thrown out of school for this behaviour which was considered a problem as a child has turned into a career. And now this career is being awarded.”

Mandel will receive the award on Tuesday at the Rockies Awards Gala at the Fairmont Banff Springs.

As with past recipients Eric McCormack, Colm Feore, Kim Cattrall, Paul Haggis and Paul Gross, Mandel is being honoured for his full body of work, one that stretches back to the 1970s.

It’s the sort of lifetime achievement honour that tends to spur self-reflection. But for the artistically restless Mandel, the only conclusion he has come to about his 30-year-plus run in show business is that it has largely unfolded by accident.

In 1978, Mandel was a carpet salesman with a strange sense of humour and a penchant for getting into trouble. At the same time, he stumbled upon Yuk Yuk’s in Toronto, which led to his first shaky appearances as a standup.

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