Looking back on his time as a star Mike & Molly, Billy Gardell praises Melissa McCarthy for being an on-screen partner he could trust — not just for laughs, but for romantic moments as well.
“It’s ridiculously easy, but when you have to act out a romantic moment or a sad moment, you have to really trust that your partner will be there for you,” she tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “From Melissa, I learned to trust and be able to do those romantic scenes, which I didn’t think I would be able to do. But because of the level of trust with her, she made it safe.”
The Emmy-winning sitcom, which ran for six seasons from 2010 to 2016, made Gardell and McCarthy stars. While McCarthy, 53, went on to a successful film and TV career, Gardell found success again starring in the CBS sitcom Bob Hearts Abishola, which is in its fifth and final season.
“The idea that I got back-to-back sitcoms is just mind-blowing,” says the actor, 54. “I mean, you should rub me for good luck.”
Billy Gardell was ‘almost done with Hollywood’ when Mike & Molly came along
Billy Gardell with Melissa McCarthy in ‘Mike & Molly’ Season 5.
Sonja Flemming/CBS/Everett
For Gardell, the road to Hollywood was not quick and easy.
One of three children, Gardell spent his early childhood growing up in Pittsburgh. In high school, he moved to Florida with his mother and siblings after his parents divorced in 1978.
About his father William, who died of lung cancer in 2018 at the age of 75, he says: “I got humor from my dad and courage from my mother [Linda]. She was the hardest working person I know,” he recalls.
Gardell started working after school at age 15 to help pay the bills. A job as a janitor at a local comedy club led him to several open mic appearances and his first official standup gig in 1987.
“I did five minutes and I was very funny, and then I was bad for two years, but the bug was in me,” he says.
He spent the next nine years on the road performing (“If it had a corner and a 2-ft. stage, we were on it”) before moving to LA, where his standup success was slow-burning and performing at smaller concerts such as Yes Dear led to Mike & Mollyplaying one half of a couple who meet at a meeting of cannibals anonymous.
Billy Gardell ‘Walks Around Pretty Healthy’ After Losing 150 Pounds: ‘It Was a Gift’
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Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy in ‘Mike & Molly’ Season 5.
Robert Voets/CBS/Everett
After landing Mike & Molly, everything has changed. “Man, that was a once-in-a-lifetime meteor. … That cast lifted me to a height I didn’t know I was capable of,” he explains. “I was very, very lucky because people spotted me and said, ‘You know what? I think there might be something there’.”
And outside of the Hollywood spotlight, one of those people is his wife of 23 years, Patty, with whom he shares a 23-year-old son, William, and whom he calls “the reason I’m a decent human being.”
“My wife always says that marriage is not a ‘give and take’. It’s ‘give and give'”, he explains. “That’s why I think we survived.”
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Bob Hearts Abishola airs Mondays at 8:30pm ET on CBS.
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Source: HIS Education