Topics: International Speakers Bureau, Inc. |
Fee Range: Call For Quote (fee note) |
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 Biography: Motivational speaker Ben Stein has had what may be the most diverse career of anyone now on the national scene. He is in every sense a Renaissance man. He has been an award winning actor, economist, writer, keynote speaker, journalist and teacher and is equally well known in America's board rooms and in America's dormitories and fraternity houses. Ben Stein was born in Washington D.C., the son of noted economist and writer Herbert Stein. He attended Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he studied alongside future luminaries Sly Stallone, Carl Bernstein, Goldie Hawn and Connie Chung. He received a B.A. with honors in Economics from Columbia, where he was active in the civil rights movement to secure voting and other legal rights for African-Americans. He was class valedictorian, by election of his classmates, at Yale Law School in 1970, where he also worked strenuously part-time as a poverty lawyer and as an activist and demonstrator for civil rights and decent treatment of the poor. After graduation, he served as a poverty lawyer in the field of advertising, and as a teacher about the political content of film and TV at American University, UC Santa Cruz and Pepperdine. He was a speech writer and lawyer for Presidents Nixon and Gerald Ford. He also did legal work for Mr. Nixon, in the darkest days of Watergate. He is not, obviously, Deep Throat. He was a columnist for The Wall Street Journal and also wrote editorials for the Journal. In June 1976, he moved to Hollywood to become a novelist, TV sitcom writer and movie script writer. He has written and published 17 books, seven of them fiction. His diary of his first year in Hollywood, DREEMZ, was called "stunning" by the New York Times. His novel "Ludes", about a drug and money addiction in Los Angeles, was made into the movie "The Boost" with James Woods and Sean Young. He has also written many screenplays, some of which were actually made into movies. Most of his books are about Hollywood and mass culture, but some are self help, and some are about finance. He labored especially hard on a decade long project of exposing financial fraud and the self dealing at large companies. His work on the Milken/Drexel junk bond scheme was instrumental in the recovery of billions for investors and tax payers. Stein has also taught about law and economics and securities law at Pepperdine Law School for many years and has served as an expert witness in many securities law cases. In 1986, with no professional training, Stein became an instant cult hero for his role as the boring economics teacher in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which was directly voted one of fifty funniest scenes in American film history. After that, Stein went on to be a recurring character in Charles in Charge and then The Wonder Years and then in 1997 began his long running hit quiz show, Win Ben Stein's Money. The show has won six Emmies and Stein has won one for best game show host. In all, his show has been nominated for 17 Emmies. Ben Stein's latest book is Yes, You Can Still Retire Comfortably. He writes regularly for E-Online and The American Spectator and over his life has been a columnist for New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, Barrons and many other magazines. Stein lives with his beloved wife of 36 years, Alexandra Denman, and their son, the devilishly handsome Thomas Stein, in Los Angeles, California, center of the universe. *In Partnership with Innovative Artist |
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Programs: "Ben Stein on Life" Ben Stein is a profoundly unique individual who has had the good fortune to have "been there and done that" in a myriad of professions that many of us only dream about, see on television, or read about in the news. Ben Stein writes speeches from scratch (as he did for two U.S. Presidents) to fit your program perfectly. With expertise in everything from law to laughs, Ben Stein's presentations will leave your audience with useful insight (if you want it!) or simply great memories of a fun time had by all. |
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