Eric Stonestreet
Eric Allen Stonestreet (born September 9, 1971) is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Cameron Tucker in the ABC sitcom Modern Family, for which he received two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series out of three nominations. He first rose to prominence in a recurring role on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He has also appeared in films including Bad Teacher (2011), Identity Thief (2013), The Loft (2013), and Confirmation (2016), and provides the voice of Duke in the animated The Secret Life of Pets film franchise (2016–2019).
Eric Stonestreet
September 9, 1971
Actor
1999–present
Lindsay Schweitzer
(2016–present; engaged)
Early life[edit]
Eric Allen Stonestreet[1] was born in Kansas City, Kansas, on September 9, 1971,[1] the son of teacher's aide Jamey Anne (née Ball) and retail business owner Vincent Stonestreet.[2] He is of German descent.[3] As a child, he wanted to become a clown,[4] and created a clown character named Fizbo; by age 11, he was performing at younger children's birthday parties. He recalled in 2012, "I don't know where the name Fizbo came from. I do know one day that's what my dad was calling me and that's the name that I printed on my business cards."[5] The name "Fizbo" was later used for a clown character he periodically played on Modern Family.
Stonestreet attended Piper High School and Kansas State University, where he was in the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity,[5] graduating with a degree in sociology in 1996.[6] While there, he made his stage debut when he appeared in Prelude to a Kiss, for which he auditioned on a dare and won the smallest role. He later appeared in All My Sons and Twelfth Night,[6] before studying improv at ImprovOlympic and The Second City Training Center in Chicago, then moved to Los Angeles to begin his professional acting career.[6]
Personal life[edit]
Stonestreet began dating pediatric nurse Lindsay Schweitzer in June 2016,[18] and they became engaged on August 22, 2021.[19]
Although he played a gay character in Modern Family, Stonestreet is heterosexual and has lightheartedly described himself as "openly straight".[20] His Modern Family co-star and onscreen husband Jesse Tyler Ferguson (who is gay in real life) jokingly called him "gay-for-pay".[4][21] Stonestreet supports LGBT causes; he refused Republican senator Rick Santorum's request to take a picture with him at the 2014 White House Correspondents' dinner due to Santorum's staunchly anti-gay platform.[22]
A keen sports fan, Stonestreet supports the Kansas City Chiefs football team[23] and joined the new ownership group of the Kansas City Royals baseball team in 2019.[24] He has also driven the pace car at several NASCAR events.[25] He often attends football games at his alma mater, Kansas State University, and stays active with several organizations there.[26]
Stonestreet is also a fan of drums, mainly a collector of them which he talked about on comedian Rob Riggles podcast “Riggles Picks”[27]
