A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was unveiled Monday honoring Bill Nye, who went from being an engineer at Boeing to winning an Emmy for hosting \u201cBill Nye the Science Guy,\u201d with a boost from winning a regional Steve Martin lookalike contest.<\/p>\n
Actor and game show host Joel McHale, Boston Celtics guard-forward Jaylen Brown and comedian Ross Shafer were among those joining Nye at the ceremony at 6357 Hollywood Blvd., between Cahuenga Boulevard and Ivar Avenue.<\/p>\n
Schafer hosted \u201cAlmost Live!,\u201d the Seattle sketch-comedy show on which Nye made his television debut. McHale was a cast member of \u201cAlmost Live!\u201d and guested on \u201cBill Nye the Science Guy\u201d in 1998.<\/p>\n
The star is the 2,821st since the completion of the Walk of Fame in 1961 with the initial 1,558 stars.<\/p>\n
\u201cRecognition by one\u2019s peers always means a great deal, but being here in Hollywood means a great deal to people far beyond our peers in television and movies,\u201d Nye said. \u201cWe export our culture around the world. \u2026 For me, being a permanent part of all this, of Hollywood, is quite an honor. As has been said many times, when you\u2019re in love, you want to tell the world. And I love science. I love comedy. I love television.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born Nov. 27, 1955, in Washington, D.C., Nye earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in mechanical engineering at Cornell in 1977 and took an engineering job at Boeing, where he specialized in hydraulics systems on 747s.<\/p>\n
After winning a regional Steve Martin lookalike contest in 1978, Nye began performing at Seattle-area comedy clubs. He quit his job at Boeing in 1986 to devote himself fulltime to his comedy career.<\/p>\n
Another boost to Nye\u2019s career came at his 10-year reunion at Cornell, where he received the opportunity to meet with Carl Sagan, best known for hosting the 1980-81 documentary series \u201cCosmos: A Personal Journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nye had taken an astronomy course from Sagan and in 1987 sought hints to increase his chances of having a successful series. Sagan\u2019s advice was to focus on pure science.<\/p>\n
\u201cBill Nye the Science Guy\u201d aired in syndication from 1993 to 1999, receiving 36 Emmy nominations and winning 19 Emmys. Nye won the Emmy for outstanding performer in a children\u2019s series in 1998, winning in a field that also included Fred Rogers, LeVar Burton and Caroll Spinney, who portrayed Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and other characters on \u201cSesame Street.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nye later hosted the 2005 public television series, \u201cThe Eyes of Nye,\u201d aimed at an older audience, the 2017-18 Netflix series, \u201cBill Nye Saves the World,\u201d described by the streaming service as \u201ca talk show exploring scientific issues that touch our lives,\u201d and 2022 Peacock series, \u201cThe End is Nye,\u201d exploring natural and unnatural disasters.<\/p>\n
Nye\u2019s other television appearances include two episodes of \u201cThe Big Bang Theory.\u201d He portrayed author and 1934 California Democratic gubernatorial nominee Upton Sinclair in the 2020 film \u201cMank.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nye has been CEO of The Planetary Society since 2010. The organization was co-founded by Sagan in 1980. Its mission is \u201cempowering the world\u2019s citizens to advance space science and exploration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nye received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation\u2019s highest civilian award, on Jan. 4, from then-President Joe Biden for earning \u201cthe trust of millions of children and families,\u201d through his experiments on \u201cBill Nye the Science Guy\u201d and inspiring \u201cgenerations of Americans to follow facts and reason and leave the world better than we found it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was unveiled Monday honoring Bill Nye, who went from being…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":247388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[17281,1582,276,17746,131423,2961,224,5337,581,44225,79783],"class_list":{"0":"post-247387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-bill","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-fame","12":"tag-honoring","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-star","17":"tag-unveiled","18":"tag-walk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115250406693337349","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}