Ferns (Pteridophyta) Temporal range: Mid Devonian[1]—Recent PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Athyrium filix-femina unrolling young frond
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Pteridophyta
Classes[2]
†Cladoxylopsida Psilotopsida Equisetopsida (alias Sphenopsida) Marattiopsida Polypodiopsida (alias Pteridopsida, Filicopsida) †Zygopteridales †Stauropteridales †Rhacophytales

A fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants belonging to the botanical group known as Pteridophyta.^[3] Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem (making them vascular plants). They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants. Ferns reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers.

By far the largest group of ferns are the leptosporangiate ferns, but ferns as defined here (also called monilophytes) include horsetails, whisk ferns, marattioid ferns, and ophioglossoid ferns. The term pteridophyte also refers to ferns and a few other seedless vascular plants (see classification section below).

Ferns first appear in the fossil record 360 million years ago in the Carboniferous but many of the current families and species did not appear until roughly 145 million years ago in the early Cretaceous (after flowering plants came to dominate many environments).

Ferns are not of major economic importance, but some are grown or gathered for food, as ornamental plants, for remediating contaminated soils, and have been the subject of research for their ability to remove some chemical pollutants from the air. Some are significant weeds. They also play a role in mythology, medicine, and art.

Life cycle[link]

Gametophyte (thalloid green mass) and sporophyte (ascendent frond) of Onoclea sensibilis

Ferns are vascular plants differing from lycophytes by having true leaves (megaphylls), which are often pinnate. They differ from seed plants (gymnosperms and angiosperms) in their mode of reproduction—lacking flowers and seeds. Like all other vascular plants, they have a life cycle referred to as alternation of generations, characterized by alternating diploid sporophytic and haploid gametophytic phases. The diploid sporophyte has 2n paired chromosomes, where n varies from species to species. The haploid gametophyte has n unpaired chromosomes, i.e. half the number of the sporophyte. Unlike the gymnosperms and angiosperms, the ferns' gametophyte is a free-living organism.

Life cycle of a typical fern:

1. A diploid sporophyte phase produces haploid spores by meiosis (a process of cell division which reduces the number of chromosomes by a half).
2. A spore grows into a haploid gametophyte by mitosis (a process of cell division which maintains the number of chromosomes). The gametophyte typically consists of a photosynthetic prothallus.
3. The gametophyte produces gametes (often both sperm and eggs on the same prothallus) by mitosis.
4. A mobile, flagellate sperm fertilizes an egg that remains attached to the prothallus.
5. The fertilized egg is now a diploid zygote and grows by mitosis into a diploid sporophyte (the typical "fern" plant).

Fern ecology[link]

Ferns at Muir Woods, California

The stereotypic image of ferns growing in moist shady woodland nooks is far from being a complete picture of the habitats where ferns can be found growing. Fern species live in a wide variety of habitats, from remote mountain elevations, to dry desert rock faces, to bodies of water or in open fields. Ferns in general may be thought of as largely being specialists in marginal habitats, often succeeding in places where various environmental factors limit the success of flowering plants. Some ferns are among the world's most serious weed species, including the bracken fern growing in the Scottish highlands, or the mosquito fern (Azolla) growing in tropical lakes, both species forming large aggressively spreading colonies. There are four particular types of habitats that ferns are found in: moist, shady forests; crevices in rock faces, especially when sheltered from the full sun; acid wetlands including bogs and swamps; and tropical trees, where many species are epiphytes (something like a quarter to a third of all fern species^[4]).

Many ferns depend on associations with mycorrhizal fungi. Many ferns only grow within specific pH ranges; for instance, the climbing fern (Lygodium) of eastern North America will only grow in moist, intensely acid soils, while the bulblet bladder fern (Cystopteris bulbifera), with an overlapping range, is only found on limestone.

The spores are rich in lipids, protein and calories, so some vertebrates eat these. The European woodmouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) has been found to eat the spores of Culcita macrocarpa and the bullfinch (Pyrrhula murina) and the New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat (Mystacina tuberculata) also eat fern spores.^[5]

Fern structure[link]

Ferns at the Royal Melbourne Botanical Gardens

Tree ferns, probably Dicksonia antarctica, growing in Nunniong, Australia

Like the sporophytes of seed plants, those of ferns consist of:

• Stems: Most often an underground creeping rhizome, but sometimes an above-ground creeping stolon (e.g., Polypodiaceae), or an above-ground erect semi-woody trunk (e.g., Cyatheaceae) reaching up to 20 m in a few species (e.g., Cyathea brownii on Norfolk Island and Cyathea medullaris in New Zealand).
• Leaf: The green, photosynthetic part of the plant. In ferns, it is often referred to as a frond, but this is because of the historical division between people who study ferns and people who study seed plants, rather than because of differences in structure. New leaves typically expand by the unrolling of a tight spiral called a crozier or fiddlehead. This uncurling of the leaf is termed circinate vernation. Leaves are divided into three types:
  • Trophophyll: A leaf that does not produce spores, instead only producing sugars by photosynthesis. Analogous to the typical green leaves of seed plants.
  • Sporophyll: A leaf that produces spores. These leaves are analogous to the scales of pine cones or to stamens and pistil in gymnosperms and angiosperms, respectively. Unlike the seed plants, however, the sporophylls of ferns are typically not very specialized, looking similar to trophophylls and producing sugars by photosynthesis as the trophophylls do.
  • Brophophyll: A leaf that produces abnormally large amounts of spores. Their leaves are also larger than the other leaves but bear a resemblance to trophophylls.
• Roots: The underground non-photosynthetic structures that take up water and nutrients from soil. They are always fibrous and are structurally very similar to the roots of seed plants.

The gametophytes of ferns, however, are very different from those of seed plants. They typically consist of:

• Prothallus: A green, photosynthetic structure that is one cell thick, usually heart or kidney shaped, 3–10 mm long and 2–8 mm broad. The prothallus produces gametes by means of:
  • Antheridia: Small spherical structures that produce flagellate sperm.
  • Archegonia: A flask-shaped structure that produces a single egg at the bottom, reached by the sperm by swimming down the neck.
• Rhizoids: root-like structures (not true roots) that consist of single greatly elongated cells, water and mineral salts are absorbed over the whole structure. Rhizoids anchor the prothallus to the soil.

One difference between sporophytes and gametophytes might be summed up by the saying that "Nothing eats ferns, but everything eats gametophytes." This is an over-simplification, but it is true that gametophytes are often difficult to find in the field because they are far more likely to be food than are the sporophytes.

Evolution and classification[link]

Ferns first appear in the fossil record in the early-Carboniferous period. By the Triassic, the first evidence of ferns related to several modern families appeared. The "great fern radiation" occurred in the late-Cretaceous, when many modern families of ferns first appeared.

One problem with fern classification is the problem of cryptic species. A cryptic species is a species that is morphologically similar to another species, but differs genetically in ways that prevent fertile interbreeding. A good example of this is the currently designated species Asplenium trichomanes, the maidenhair spleenwort. This is actually a species complex that includes distinct diploid and tetraploid races. There are minor but unclear morphological differences between the two groups, which prefer distinctly differing habitats. In many cases such as this, the species complexes have been separated into separate species, thus raising the number of overall fern species. Possibly many more cryptic species are yet to be discovered and designated.

Ferns have traditionally been grouped in the Class Filices, but modern classifications assign them their own phylum or division in the plant kingdom, called Pteridophyta, also known as Filicophyta. The group is also referred to as Polypodiophyta, (or Polypodiopsida when treated as a subdivision of tracheophyta (vascular plants), although Polypodiopsida sometimes refers to only the leptosporangiate ferns). The term "pteridophyte" has traditionally been used to describe all seedless vascular plants, making it synonymous with "ferns and fern allies". This can be confusing since members of the fern phylum Pteridophyta are also sometimes referred to as pteridophytes.

Traditionally, three discrete groups of plants have been considered ferns: two groups of eusporangiate ferns—families Ophioglossaceae (adders-tongues, moonworts, and grape-ferns) and Marattiaceae—and the leptosporangiate ferns. The Marattiaceae are a primitive group of tropical ferns with a large, fleshy rhizome, and are now thought to be a sibling taxon to the main group of ferns, the leptosporangiate ferns. Several other groups of plants were considered "fern allies": the clubmosses, spikemosses, and quillworts in the Lycopodiophyta, the whisk ferns in Psilotaceae, and the horsetails in the Equisetaceae. More recent genetic studies have shown that the Lycopodiophyta are more distantly related to other vascular plants, having radiated evolutionarily at the base of the vascular plant clade, while both the whisk ferns and horsetails are as much "true" ferns as are the Ophioglossoids and Marattiaceae. In fact, the whisk ferns and Ophioglossoids are demonstrably a clade, and the horsetails and Marattiaceae are arguably another clade. Molecular data—which remain poorly constrained for many parts of the plants' phylogeny — have been supplemented by recent morphological observations supporting the inclusion of Equisetaceae within the ferns, notably relating to the construction of their sperm, and peculiarities of their roots.^[2] However, there are still differences of opinion about the placement of the Equisetum species (see Equisetopsida for further discussion). One possible means of treating this situation is to consider only the leptosporangiate ferns as "true" ferns, while considering the other three groups as "fern allies". In practice, numerous classification schemes have been proposed for ferns and fern allies, and there has been little consensus among them.

A 2006 classification by Smith et al. is based on recent molecular systematic studies, in addition to morphological data. Their phylogeny is a consensus of a number of studies, and is shown below (to the level of orders).^[2][6]

Their classification based on this phylogeny divides extant ferns into four classes:

• Psilotopsida (whisk ferns and ophioglossoid ferns), about 92 species^[7]
• Equisetopsida (horsetails), about 15 species^[7]
• Marattiopsida, about 150 species^[7]
• Polypodiopsida (leptosporangiate ferns), over 9000 species^[7]

The last group includes most plants familiarly known as ferns. Modern research supports older ideas based on morphology that the Osmundaceae diverged early in the evolutionary history of the leptosporangiate ferns; in certain ways this family is intermediate between the eusporangiate ferns and the leptosporangiate ferns. Research by Rai and Graham since this 2006 classification broadly supports the division into four groups, but queries their relationships, concluding that "at present perhaps the best that can be said about all relationships among the major lineages of monilophytes in current studies is that we do not understand them very well".^[8]

Uses[link]

Ferns are not as important economically as seed plants but have considerable importance in some societies. Some ferns are used for food, including the fiddleheads of bracken, Pteridium aquilinum, ostrich fern, Matteuccia struthiopteris, and cinnamon fern, Osmunda cinnamomea. Diplazium esculentum is also used by some tropical peoples as food. Tubers from the King Fern or para (Ptisana salicina) are a traditional food in New Zealand and the South Pacific. Fern tubers were used for food 30,000 years ago in Europe.^[9][10] Fern tubers were used by the Guanches to make gofio in the Canary Islands. Licorice fern rhizomes were chewed by the natives of the Pacific Northwest for their flavor.^{[citation needed]}

Ferns of the genus Azolla are very small, floating plants that do not resemble ferns. Called mosquito fern, they are used as a biological fertilizer in the rice paddies of southeast Asia, taking advantage of their ability to fix nitrogen from the air into compounds that can then be used by other plants.^{[citation needed]}

Many ferns are grown in horticulture as landscape plants, for cut foliage and as houseplants, especially the Boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata) and other members of the genus Nephrolepis. The Bird's Nest Fern (Asplenium nidus) is also popular, as is the staghorn ferns (genus Platycerium). Perennial (also known as hardy) ferns planted in gardens in the northern hemisphere also have a considerable following.^{[citation needed]}

Several ferns are noxious weeds or invasive species, including Japanese climbing fern (Lygodium japonicum), mosquito fern and sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis). Giant water fern (Salvinia molesta) is one of the world's worst aquatic weeds. The important fossil fuel coal consists of the remains of primitive plants, including ferns.^{[citation needed]}

Ferns have been studied and found to be useful in the removal of heavy metals, especially arsenic, from the soil. Other ferns with some economic significance include:^{[citation needed]}

• Dryopteris filix-mas (male fern), used as a vermifuge, and formerly in the US Pharmacopeia; also, this fern accidentally sprouting in a bottle resulted in Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward's 1829 invention of the terrarium or Wardian case
• Rumohra adiantiformis (floral fern), extensively used in the florist trade
• Microsorum pteropus (Java fern), one of the most popular freshwater aquarium plants.
• Osmunda regalis (royal fern) and Osmunda cinnamomea (cinnamon fern), the root fiber being used horticulturally; the fiddleheads of O. cinnamomea are also used as a cooked vegetable
• Matteuccia struthiopteris (ostrich fern), the fiddleheads used as a cooked vegetable in North America
• Pteridium aquilinum or Pteridium esculentum (bracken), the fiddleheads used as a cooked vegetable in Japan and are believed to be responsible for the high rate of stomach cancer in Japan. It is also one of the world's most important agricultural weeds, especially in the British highlands, and often poisons cattle and horses.
• Diplazium esculentum (vegetable fern), a source of food for some native societies
• Pteris vittata (brake fern), used to absorb arsenic from the soil
• Polypodium glycyrrhiza (licorice fern), roots chewed for their pleasant flavor
• Tree ferns, used as building material in some tropical areas
• Cyathea cooperi (Australian tree fern), an important invasive species in Hawaii
• Ceratopteris richardii, a model plant for teaching and research, often called C-fern

Culture[link]

Blätter des Manns Walfarn. by Alois Auer, Vienna: Imperial Printing Office, 1853

Pteridologist[link]

The study of ferns and other pteridophytes is called pteridology. A pteridologist is a specialist in the study of pteridophytes in a broader sense that includes the more distantly related lycophytes.

Pteridomania[link]

"Pteridomania"' is a term for the Victorian era craze of fern collecting and fern motifs in decorative art including pottery, glass, metals, textiles, wood, printed paper, and sculpture "appearing on everything from christening presents to gravestones and memorials." The fashion for growing ferns indoors led to the development of the Wardian case, a glazed cabinet that would exclude air pollutants and maintain the necessary humidity.^[11]

Barnsley fern created using chaos game, through an Iterated function system (IFS).

The dried form of ferns was also used in other arts, being used as a stencil or directly inked for use in a design. The botanical work, The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland, is a notable example of this type of nature printing. The process, patented by the artist and publisher Henry Bradbury, impressed a specimen on to a soft lead plate. The first publication to demonstrate this was Alois Auer's The Discovery of the Nature Printing-Process.

New Zealand icon[link]

The silver fern in particular has a prominent place within New Zealand culture. Its leaf features as the emblem of many of the country's top national sports teams, including the eponymous Silver Ferns and the All Blacks.

Folklore[link]

Ferns figure in folklore, for example in legends about mythical flowers or seeds.^[12] In Slavic folklore, ferns are believed to bloom once a year, during the Ivan Kupala night. Although alleged to be exceedingly difficult to find, anyone who sees a "fern flower" is thought to be guaranteed to be happy and rich for the rest of their life. Similarly, Finnish tradition holds that one who finds the "seed" of a fern in bloom on Midsummer night will, by possession of it, be guided and be able to travel invisibly to the locations where eternally blazing Will o' the wisps called aarnivalkea mark the spot of hidden treasure. These spots are protected by a spell that prevents anyone but the fern-seed holder from ever knowing their locations.^[13]

Misunderstood names[link]

Several non-fern plants are called "ferns" and are sometimes confused with true ferns. These include:

• "Asparagus fern"—This may apply to one of several species of the monocot genus Asparagus, which are flowering plants.
• "Sweetfern"—A flowering shrub of the genus Comptonia.
• "Air fern"—A group of animals called hydrozoan that are distantly related to jellyfish and corals. They are harvested, dried, dyed green, and then sold as a "plant" that can "live on air". While it may look like a fern, it is merely the skeleton of this colonial animal.
• "Fern bush"—Chamaebatiaria millefolium—a rose family shrub with fern-like leaves.

In addition, the book Where the Red Fern Grows has elicited many questions about the mythical "red fern" named in the book. There is no such known plant, although there has been speculation that the oblique grape-fern, Sceptridium dissectum, could be referred to here, because it is known to appear on disturbed sites and its fronds may redden over the winter. Also, the autumn fern, Dryopteris erythrosora, is well-known for its copper-red color.

Gallery[link]

• 

  Adiantum lunulatum

• 

  Fern leaf, probably Blechnum nudum

• 

  A tree fern unrolling a new frond

• 

  Tree fern, probably Dicksonia antarctica

• 

  Tree ferns, probably Dicksonia antarctica

• 

  "Filicinae" from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904

• 

  Unidentified tree fern in Oaxaca

• 

  Tree Fern Spores San Diego, CA

• 

  Leaf of fern

• 

  Unidentified fern with spores showing in Rotorua, NZ.

• 

  Ferns in one of many natural Coast Redwood undergrowth settings Santa Cruz, CA.

• 

  Nature prints in The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland used fronds to produce the plates

• 

  A young, newly-formed fern frond

• 

  Fern fronds

• 

  Fern bed under a forest canopy in woods near Franklin, Virginia

• 

  Pyrrosia piloselloides, Dragon's Scale, in Malaysia

• 

  Fern growing on a wall

• 

  Spores of Dryopteris filix-mas

See also[link]

• British Pteridological Society
• Fern gall
• Fern spike
• Fern sports
• Fiddlehead greens
• Pteridomania

References[link]

• Pryer, Kathleen M., Harald Schneider, Alan R. Smith, Raymond Cranfill, Paul G. Wolf, Jeffrey S. Hunt and Sedonia D. Sipes. 2001. Horsetails and ferns are a monophyletic group and the closest living relatives to seed plants. Nature 409: 618–622 (abstract here).
• Pryer, Kathleen M., Eric Schuettpelz, Paul G. Wolf, Harald Schneider, Alan R. Smith and Raymond Cranfill. 2004. Phylogeny and evolution of ferns (monilophytes) with a focus on the early leptosporangiate divergences. American Journal of Botany 91:1582–1598 (online abstract here).
• Moran, Robbin C. (2004). A Natural History of Ferns. Portland, OR: Timber Press. ISBN 0-88192-667-1.
• Lord, Thomas R. (2006). Ferns and Fern Allies of Pennsylvania. Indiana, PA: Pinelands Press. [1]

External links[link]

Wikispecies has information related to: Pteridophyta

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pteridophyta

• Tree of Life Web Project: Filicopsida
• A classification of the ferns and their allies
• A fern book bibliography
• Register of fossil Pteridophyta
• L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz (2004 onwards). The Ferns (Filicopsida) of the British Isles.
• Ferns and Pteridomania in Victorian Scotland
• Non-seed plant images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu
• "American Fern Society"
• "British Pteridological Society"
• Checklist of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World

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Steve Carell
Carell at the Sydney Crazy, Stupid, Love. premiere in July 2011
Born	Steven John Carell (1962-08-16) August 16, 1962 (age 49) Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Denison University
Occupation	Actor, comedian, voice artist, producer, writer, director
Years active	1989–present
Notable work(s)	The Daily Show The Office Despicable Me Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy Crazy, Stupid, Love.
Spouse	Nancy Carell (m. 1995)
Children	Annie Carell (b. 2001) John Carell (b. 2004)
Awards	Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series 2006 The Office

Steven John "Steve" Carell ( /kəˈrɛl/; born August 16, 1962)^[1] is an American comedian, actor, voice artist, producer, writer, and director. Although Carell is notable for his role on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, he found greater fame in the late 2000s for playing Michael Scott on The Office. He has also starred in lead roles in the films The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, Get Smart, Date Night, Dinner for Schmucks, and Crazy, Stupid, Love.; and voiced characters in the animated films Over the Hedge, Horton Hears a Who!, and Despicable Me. Carell was nominated as "America's funniest man" in Life magazine, and received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Comedy Series for playing the lead role of Michael Scott for The Office in 2006.

Early life[link]

Carell, the youngest of four brothers, was born at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts, and was raised in nearby Acton by his parents, Harriet T. (née Koch), a psychiatric nurse, and Edwin A. Carell, an electrical engineer.^[2][3] His maternal uncle, Stanley Koch, worked with Allen B. DuMont to create cathode ray tubes.^[4] Carell's paternal grandfather was Italian;^[2] his father was born with the surname "Caroselli", later shortening it to "Carell".^[3] Carell was raised Roman Catholic,^[5] and was educated at The Fenn School and Middlesex School. Carell also played ice hockey as a teenager for his high school.^{[citation needed]} He played the fife, performing with other members of his family, and later joined a reenacting group portraying the 10th (North Lincoln) Regiment of Foot. Carell attributed his interest in history to this,^[6] in which he earned his degree from Denison University in Granville, Ohio in 1984.^[7][8] While at Denison, Carell was a member of Burpee's Seedy Theatrical Company, a student-run improvisational comedy troupe.^[9]

Career[link]

Carell states that he worked as a mail carrier in Littleton, Massachusetts. He later recounted that he quit after a few months because his boss told him he was not very good as a mail carrier; he needed to be more efficient.^[10] Early in his performing career, Carell acted on the stage in a touring children's theater company and later in the comedy musical, Knat Scatt Private Eye. He also acted in a television commercial for Brown's Chicken in 1989.^[11] After that, Carell performed with Chicago troupe The Second City in 1991, where Stephen Colbert was his understudy for a time. That same year, he obtained his first film work in a minor role as Tesio in Curly Sue.

During the spring of 1996, he was a cast member of The Dana Carvey Show, a primetime sketch comedy program on ABC. Along with fellow cast member Stephen Colbert, Carell provided the voice of Gary, half of The Ambiguously Gay Duo, the Robert Smigel–produced animated short which continued on Saturday Night Live later that year. While the program lasted only seven episodes, The Dana Carvey Show has since been credited with forging Carell's career.^[12] During this time, he also played a supporting character for several series including Come to Papa and the short-lived 1997 Tim Curry situation comedy Over the Top. He has made numerous guest appearances, including on an episode of Just Shoot Me! titled "Funny Girl." Carell's other early screen credits includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus's short-lived situation comedy Watching Ellie (2002–2003) and Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda. He has also made fun of himself for auditioning for Saturday Night Live but losing the job to Will Ferrell. Carell was a correspondent for The Daily Show from 1999 until 2005, with a number of regular segments including "Even Stevphen" with Stephen Colbert and "Produce Pete."

[edit] The Office

During 2005, Carell signed a deal with NBC to star in The Office, a "mockumentary" about life at a mid-sized paper supply company, which was a remake of a successful British TV series. He plays Michael Scott, the idiosyncratic regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Inc, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Although the first season of the adaptation suffered mediocre ratings, NBC renewed it for another season due to the anticipated success of Carell's movie The 40-Year-Old Virgin,^[13] and the series subsequently became a ratings success. Carell won a Golden Globe and Television Critics Association award during 2006 for his Office role. He has also received five Emmy Award nominations^[14] for his work in the series (2006–2010). His last episode for the show, "Goodbye, Michael" aired on April 28, 2011.

Carell earned approximately US$175,000 per episode of the third season of The Office, twice his salary for the previous two seasons. In an Entertainment Weekly interview, he commented on his salary, saying "You don't want people to think you're a pampered jerk. Salaries can be ridiculous. On the other hand, a lot of people are making a lot of money off of these shows."^[15] Carell was allowed "flex time" during filming to work on theatrical films. Carell worked on Evan Almighty during a production hiatus during the second season of The Office.^[16] Production ended during the middle of the fourth season of The Office because of Carell's and others' refusal to cross the picket line of the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike. Carell, a WGA member,^[17] has written two episodes of The Office: "Casino Night" and "Survivor Man". Both episodes were praised, and Carell won a Writers Guild of America Award for "Casino Night".^{[citation needed]}

On April 29, 2010, Carell stated he would be leaving the show when his contract expired at the conclusion of the 2010–2011 season.^[18]

His last episode, "Goodbye, Michael", aired April 28, 2011 with his final shot showing Carell walking to a Colorado-bound plane to join his fiancée, Holly Flax.

Film career[link]

Carell at the Academy Awards in 2007

Carell's first starring role was in the 2005 film The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which he developed and co-wrote. The film made $109 million in domestic box office^[19] and established Carell as a leading man. It also earned Carell an MTV Movie Award for Best Comedic Performance and a WGA Award nomination, along with co-writer Judd Apatow, for Best Original Screenplay.

Carell acted as "Uncle Arthur", imitating the camp mannerisms of Paul Lynde's original character for the 2005 remake of Bewitched with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. He also voiced a starring role for the 2006 computer-animated film Over the Hedge as Hammy the Squirrel. He also voiced for the 2008 animated film Horton Hears a Who! as the mayor of Whoville, Ned McDodd. He starred in Little Miss Sunshine during 2006, as Uncle Frank. His work in the films Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and Bewitched established Carell as a member of Hollywood's so-called "Frat Pack" group. (This set of actors includes Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and Luke Wilson).

Carell acted as the title character of Evan Almighty, a sequel to Bruce Almighty, reprising his role as Evan Baxter, now a U.S. Congressman. Although, ostensibly, God tasks Baxter with building an ark, Baxter also learns that life can generate positive returns with people offering Acts of Random Kindness. During October 2006, Carell began acting for the film Dan in Real Life, co-starring Dane Cook and Juliette Binoche. Filming ended December 22, 2006, and the film was released on October 26, 2007.

Carell played Maxwell Smart for a movie remake of Get Smart, which began filming February 3, 2007 and was filmed in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Moscow, Russia. The movie was successful, grossing over $200 million worldwide.^[20] During 2007, Carell was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.^[21][22]

Carell filmed a movie during late 2008 opposite Tina Fey, titled Date Night. It was released on April 9, 2010 in the U.S. He voiced Gru who is the main character in the Universal CGI movie Despicable Me along with Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Miranda Cosgrove, and Julie Andrews, which was very successful (he will likely be reprising the role for the upcoming sequel). He has several other projects in the works, including a remake of the 1967 Peter Sellers film The Bobo. He is currently doing voiceover work in commercials for Wrigley's Extra gum.

Carell has launched a television division of his Carousel Prods., which has contracted a three-year overall deal with Universal Media Studios, the studio behind his NBC comedy series. Thom Hinkle and Campbell Smith of North South Prods., former producers on Carell's alma mater, Comedy Central's The Daily Show, have been hired to manage Carousel's TV operations.^[23]

Carell with wife Nancy at the 2010 Academy Awards in March 2010

Personal life[link]

Carell is married to Saturday Night Live alumna Nancy Carell, whom he met when she was a student in an improvisation class he was teaching at Second City.^[24] They have two children, Elisabeth Anne "Annie" (born May 26, 2001) and John "Johnny" (born June 2004). In addition to working with him as a fellow correspondent on The Daily Show, Nancy also acted with him on The Office as his realtor and short-lived girlfriend Carol Stills, and also cameoed as a sex therapist in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

Filmography[link]

Film[link]

Television[link]

Other awards[link]

Carell won the Spike TV 2008 "Guys Choice", Funniest M.F. Award.^[37]

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Steve Carell

• Steve Carell at the Internet Movie Database
• Steve Carell on Charlie Rose
• Works by or about Steve Carell in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Dateline NBC's interview with Carell
• Carell's antique country store in Marshfield, Massachusetts
• USA Today article on real-life CEO lessons
• Steve Carell at Emmys.com