Evan Handler's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) Californication Charlie Run… Sex and the City Harry Golde… Hot Properties Dr. Sellers… It's Like, You Know... Shrug Woops! Mark Braddock

Main Movie Roles

BIOGRAPHY:

Evan Handler (born January 10, 1961) is an American actor and leukemia survivor who is perhaps best known for playing Harry Goldenblatt, Charlotte's divorce attorney and later husband, on Sex and the City, and Charlie Runkle, Hank's comically bumbling friend and agent, on Californication

Acting

Handler has appeared in television dramas and sitcoms including Six Feet Under, Law & Order, The West Wing, Miami Vice, Sex and the City, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (as staff writer Ricky Tahoe), Ed, Friends, Lost and 24. He was a co-star in the ABC sitcoms It's Like, You Know... and Hot Properties and starred in the ill-fated FOX sitcom Woops!. In 2000, Handler portrayed Larry Fine in a made-for-TV biopic of The Three Stooges. Handler can currently be seen on Californication where he plays Charlie Runkle, the best friend and agent to David Duchovny's character, Hank Moody. Handler has also appeared in several major feature film roles, including Ransom, 1996; The Chosen, 1981; Sweet Lorraine, 1987; and Taps, 1981.

Writing

Handler is also an author. His first book, Time On Fire: My Comedy of Terrors, tells the story of his unlikely recovery from Acute Myeloid Leukemia in his mid-twenties. His second, It's Only Temporary...The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive, tells the story of his long journey toward gratitude in the years after his illness. The book was released in May 2008. Handler has written for several nationally distributed magazines, including ELLE, O, the Oprah Magazine, and Mirabella. Handler contributes regularly to The Huffington Post.

Personal life

Handler was born in New York City, the son of Enid Irene, a mental health administrator, and Murry Raymond Handler, an agency owner and advertising designer. He attended Hendrick Hudson High School in Montrose, New York. He moved to New York City again at 17 to attend the Juilliard School. He left school to accept a role in the film Taps in 1980.
He married Elisa Atti, an Italian-born chemist, in 2003, and they have a daughter, Sofia Clementina Handler, born 17 January 2007.


TRIVIA:

• (October 2008) Participated in the 3rd Munchkin's Project Pink annual breast cancer awareness campaign to raise money for breast cancer research. The project consists of the donation of celebrity-decorated and autographed bath ducks, put up for auction.
• Brother of 'Lowell Handler' (qv)
• In an interview on the NPR show "Talk of the Nation", Handler said that during negotiations with various Hollywood studio executives who were interested in optioning Handler's first book, "Time on Fire: My Comedy of Terrors", to be adapted into a movie, one agent tried to sign Handler by presenting the possibility that the movie might later get turned into a ride at Busch Gardens Amusement Park. "Time on Fire" is about Handler's long, difficult, and painful treatment for acute myeloid leukemia, and his anger at what he saw as the inhumanity of modern medical treatment. Handler joked to "Talk of the Nation" journalist 'Neal Conan' (qv) that the ride might have been called "Patients of the Caribbean".
• While in his mid-20s and very ill with a likely-fatal type of leukemia, one of the hospital chaplains performed an ancient Jewish ritual on him in which his name was changed to fool the Angel of Death into not knowing who to come for. The name on his new birth certificate was "Chaim".
• Quit the Broadway show "I Hate Hamlet" mid-performance after his co-star 'Nicol Williamson' (qv) hit him with a sword and chased him off stage. This situation was used as a plotline in the _"NYPD Blue" (1993)_ (qv) episode "Cold Heaters" (Season 3, Episode 8).
• Dropped out of the Broadway production of "Biloxi Blues" when he was diagnosed with cancer. He was 'Matthew Broderick (I)' (qv)'s understudy. He also played "Harold" in the touring company of "Master Harold and the Boys", a role which Broderick played in a television production, and he appeared on _"Sex and the City" (1998)_ (qv) with Broderick's wife, 'Sarah Jessica Parker'.
• Wrote the book "Time on Fire: My Comedy of Terrors" (about his experience of being a leukemia patient) that was published in 1996 by Little, Brown, and Company. This book is reviewed and written about in great deal in the January, 2003 issue of "The Oprah Magazine" in an article about patient health-care advocacy.