Award-winning actress, writer, talk show host, comedienne and inspirational public speaker, Lydia Cornell grew up in in America’s living rooms. Best known for her starring role as the daughter of TV legend Ted Knight (The Mary Tyler Moore Show) in the hit ABC series Too Close for Comfort, Cornell was one of the most popular sex symbols of the 80’s, playing the virginal cheerleader Sara Rush. An international celebrity, Cornell starred in over 250 shows, films and TV episodes. Recently seen on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, Lydia is currently starring in the new Kelsey Grammer-Bill Zucker Comedy Hour and has her own channel on Kelsey’s new celebrity TV network TODHD. As cohost of her own A.M. radio show in Las Vegas, she interviewed world leaders, Pulitzer Prize winners, White House advisors, presidential candidates and Congressmen. Now she has her own LIVE talk show each week — a provocative, humorous celebrity TV show on the fastest growing network with Kelsey Grammer.
Cornell has been invited to contribute her writings to the International Museum of Peace, which houses letters from Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mother Teresa, Maya Angelou & Sir Edmund Hillary. As a standup comic, she has played the Improv, Laugh Factory, Riviera and Sahara in Vegas (where she opened for The Amazing Jonathan, and recently appeared in her original 3-woman play Pain is Inevitable, Sex Optional.
Triumph over Tragedy
Lydia Cornell is a women and children’s advocate, and an inspirational speaker on domestic violence and teen suicide prevention — as well as on drug, alcohol and Adderall[1] abuse. She endured a shattering personal tragedy when she found her younger brother’s body after a drug overdose. Sober now for 15 years, she speaks to recovery groups of up to 300 or more.
She hosted a documentary for Safe Passage Home.org — an organization that gives extreme life makeovers to victims of domestic violence, which will be shown on Oxygen network.
She mentors teenagers and is deeply involved in women’s and children’s charities. A mother of boys, she has been raising teenagers! Last fall she housed domestic abuse victims and cared for their children throughout the school year. With the help of the police, Cornell helped rescue a battered woman from a predator.
Cornell speaks at high schools, hospitals, and women’s centers on overcoming grief, unemployment, sexism, ageism, depression, self-sabotage, obnoxious teenagers — and every imaginable hardship. Her talks are laced with poignant stories of transformation with an innate sense of comic timing. “If you can laugh at yourself you probably won’t kill yourself.”
Sixteen years sober, Cornell does inspirational public speaking all over the country on domestic violence as well as drug and alcohol abuse.
Cornell’s triumph over tragedy, depression and addiction was the result of a ‘catastrophic spiritual awakening.’ “There is a reason so many celebrities are in rehab these days,” she says. Her experiences in overcoming a string of failures and humiliations inspired her to assist others with their own demons.
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| Above, left to right: Ray Middleton, Ted Knight, Deb Van Valkenburgh, Nancy Dussault, Lydia Cornell, Jim Bullock, Audrey Meadows |
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| Bill Zucker, Kelsey Grammer, Lydia Cornell, Scott Baio |
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Lydia Cornell, Larry David in HBO's "Curb"       |
