Mayim Bialik

Mayim Chaya Bialik[2] was born on December 12, 1975, in San Diego, California,[3][4] to Barry and Beverly (née Winkleman) Bialik.[5][6][7] Her family were Jewish immigrants who lived in The Bronx, New York City,[8] and three of her four grandparents migrated from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.[9][10][11][12] She was raised as a Reform Jew,[9][13] but now considers herself to be Modern Orthodox Jewish.[14][15][16] She had a Bat Mitzvah.[17] She has also described herself as a "staunch Zionist".[9] Her personal name, Mayim ('water' in Hebrew), originates in a mispronunciation of Miriam, her great-grandmother's name.[18][19] Poet Hayim Nahman Bialik was her great-great-grandfather's uncle.[20]

Bialik graduated in 1993 from North Hollywood High School in North Hollywood, California.[21] In acknowledgment of her acting commitments, she was granted a deferred acceptance and attended University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).[22][23] She said she wanted to stay close to her parents and did not want to move to the East Coast. She earned a B.S. degree in neuroscience, with minors in Hebrew and Jewish studies, from UCLA in 2000.[24][25]

Bialik stated that she did not have the grades needed for medical school.[26] She went on to study for a doctorate in neuroscience. She took a break from studies in 2005 to return to acting.[27] She returned to earn her Ph.D. degree in neuroscience from UCLA in 2007.[28] Her dissertation was an investigation of hypothalamic activity in patients with Prader–Willi syndrome, entitled "Hypothalamic regulation in relation to maladaptive, obsessive-compulsive, affiliative and satiety behaviors in Prader–Willi syndrome."[2][29][30]

Bialik at the rehearsal for the 1989 Academy Awards

Bialik started her career as a child actress in the late 1980s. Her early roles included the horror film Pumpkinhead (1988), her first acting job,[31] and guest appearances on The Facts of Life (final-season episode only) and Beauty and the Beast. In 1988–1989, she had a recurring role on the TV comedy Webster playing Frieda, Webster's classmate, in eight episodes. It was for her Beauty and the Beast work, in which she played a sewer-dwelling girl named Ellie who had about 10 lines of dialogue, that Bialik obtained her Screen Actors Guild (SAG) card.[32] She appeared in three episodes of MacGyver as Lisa Woodman. She appeared in Beaches (1988), playing Bette Midler's character as a young girl. Multiple contemporary reviews singled out her performance as a strong point in an otherwise emotionally contrived and formulaic film.[33][34][35] She appeared in the video for the song "Liberian Girl" by Michael Jackson. In 1990, she was tied to two television pilots, Fox's Molloy and NBC's Blossom. Molloy at first produced six episodes for a tryout run, followed by the shooting of the pilot special for Blossom. The latter actually aired two weeks before Bialik's Fox series and ultimately garnered higher ratings than the former. When Molloy folded after its six episodes, Blossom premiered as a mid-season replacement on January 3, 1991, and aired until May 22, 1995.[36]

On September 8, 1992, Bialik was a celebrity contestant guest in the episode "Disturbing The Heavenly Peace", the first episode of the second season of the game show Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?. She had a major part in the Woody Allen comedy film Don't Drink the Water in 1994. Between 1995 and 2005, she mostly did voice-over work for cartoons, such as The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, Disney's Recess and Kim Possible, Cartoon Network's Johnny Bravo, and Nickelodeon's Hey Arnold!. She appeared in the feature film Kalamazoo? (2005) and appeared in three episodes of the HBO comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm as Jodi Funkhouser, the lesbian daughter of a friend of Larry David. The character transitioned to male in a later episode, going by the name Joey, and was recast to Chaz Bono, who is himself a trans man. Bialik also made guest appearances as a fictionalized version of herself in the series Fat Actress and made a guest appearance in an episode of Saving Grace.[37]

Bialik at the 36th Annual Gracie Awards in 2011

Bialik had a recurring role as the high school guidance counselor in ABC Family's The Secret Life of the American Teenager. In 2009, she was nominated by Clinton Kelly for a makeover on TLC's What Not To Wear.[37] She joined the cast of The Big Bang Theory as Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler in September 2010. Her first appearance was in the season 3 finale as a potential love interest for the character of Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons). In season 4, she began as a recurring character playing Sheldon's "friend that's a girl, but not a girlfriend." Beginning with the 8th episode of season 4, she became part of the main cast.[38] The character Amy is a neurobiologist, which is related to Bialik's real-life doctorate in neuroscience. Bialik's performance in The Big Bang Theory earned her Emmy Award nominations in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. Bialik was one of seven actresses who had a "quirky" personality to audition for the role.[39] Prior to her joining the cast, in the episode "The Bat Jar Conjecture", Raj suggests recruiting the real-life Bialik to their Physics Bowl team, saying "You know who's apparently very smart is the girl who played TV's Blossom. She got a Ph.D. in neuroscience or something." She is cast as one of the guest stars on the Steve Carell 2014 improvisational sketch show Riot.[40][41][42]

In August 2014, Bialik began hosting a revival of Candid Camera on TV Land alongside Peter Funt.[43] On March 6, 2012, her book, Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way, was released.[44] Her most recent movie appearance was in a Lifetime Christmas movie, The Flight Before Christmas in 2015.[45]

In 2019 Bialik appeared in a commercial for IBM.[46] On August 20, 2019, it was announced that she and her new production company, Sad Clown Productions, had signed exclusive contracts with Warner Bros. Entertainment. Mackenzie Gabriel-Vaught, a former executive at Chuck Lorre Productions, will be head of development for Sad Clown.[47] Sad Clown Productions, in conjunction with Jim Parsons' That's Wonderful Productions, BBC Studios, and Miranda Hart, will be executive producing a starring vehicle for Bialik. Call Me Kat, based on Miranda Hart's BBC series Miranda, will star Bialik in the title role. The series, a co-production of Warner Bros. and Fox Entertainment, started airing on Fox on January 3, 2021.[48][49]

Bialik married Michael Stone on August 31, 2003, in a Victorian-themed ceremony that included traditional Jewish wedding customs.[66] Bialik and Stone have two sons, Miles (b. 2005) and Frederick (b. 2008).[67] The couple divorced in November 2012.[68] In December 2018, she revealed that she and her boyfriend of five years had broken up.[69]

In 2010, Bialik returned to television so she could spend more time with her children; "I'm glad that I completed my PhD and I'm very proud of it, but the life of a research professor would not have suited my needs in terms of what kind of parenting I wanted to do."[39] In addition, she had explained that her "health insurance was running out", via the COBRA program. She had sought out Screen Actors Guild (SAG) health insurance for herself and her two sons.

In a 2012 interview, Bialik said she sees herself as an "aspiring Modern Orthodox".[16] She has also described herself as a "staunch Zionist".[9] She is a self-professed fan of The Maccabeats, an American Orthodox Jewish a cappella group based at Yeshiva University, and appeared with her two sons lighting the menorah in the group's 2011 Hanukkah music video.[70] During the 2014 Gaza Conflict, she donated money to the IDF for armored vests.[71] She has also appeared in several YouTube cameos as Blossom and Amy Farrah Fowler asking questions about Jewish beliefs.[72] The videos are produced by Allison Josephs, Bialik's Judaism study partner, whom she encountered with the help of Partners in Torah.[73] Bialik is a celebrity spokesperson for the Holistic Moms Network.[74]

In 2014, Bialik was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Boston University.[75][76]

Bialik is a vegan[77] and a founding member of the Shamayim V'Aretz Institute, a Jewish organization that advocates for the ethical treatment of animals.[78] In 2017, she announced that she and vegan chef Ali Cruddas co-own Bodhi Bowl, a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles.[79]

She said on The Late Late Show with James Corden that she identified herself as a feminist.[80]

Bialik is a first cousin, three times removed, of the Jewish poet Hayim Nahman Bialik.[81]

• Bialik, Mayim Chaya (2007). Hypothalamic regulation in relation to maladaptive, obsessive-compulsive, affiliative, and satiety behaviors in Prader-Willi syndrome (Ph.D.). University of California, Los Angeles. OCLC 732917927. Retrieved May 5, 2018 – via ProQuest.
• Bialik, Mayim; Jay Gordon (Introduction) (2012). Beyond the Sling: A Real-Life Guide to Raising Confident, Loving Children the Attachment Parenting Way. Touchstone. ISBN 978-1451662184.[84]
• Bialik, Mayim; Jay Gordon (2014). Mayim's Vegan Table: More Than 100 Great-Tasting and Healthy Recipes from My Family to Yours. Da Capo Lifelong Books. ISBN 978-0738217048.[85]
• Bialik, Mayim (2017) Girling Up: How to be Strong, Smart and Spectacular. Philomel Books. ISBN 9780399548604.[86]
• Bialik, Mayim (2018) Boying Up: How to be Brave, Bold and Brilliant. Philomel Books. ISBN 9780525515975.[87]

• List of celebrities with advanced degrees

Notes

Further reading

• Gootman, Elissa (September 21, 2012). "From Blossom to Amy but Still Always Mayim". The New York Times.

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