39 Facts About Garrison Keillor

Gary Edward "Garrison" Keillor is an American author, singer, humorist, voice actor, and radio personality.

Garrison Keillor created the Minnesota Public Radio show A Prairie Home Companion, which he hosted from 1974 to 2016.

Garrison Keillor was born in Anoka, Minnesota, the son of Grace Ruth and John Philip Garrison Keillor.

Garrison Keillor's father was a carpenter and postal worker who was half-Canadian with English ancestry; Keillor's paternal grandfather was from Kingston, Ontario.

Garrison Keillor was the third of six children, with three brothers and two sisters.

Garrison Keillor's family belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, an Evangelical Christian movement that he has since left.

Garrison Keillor graduated from Anoka High School in 1960 and from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor's degree in English in 1966.

Garrison Keillor started his professional radio career in November 1969 with Minnesota Educational Radio, later Minnesota Public Radio, which today distributes programs under the American Public Media brand.

Garrison Keillor hosted a weekday drive-time broadcast called A Prairie Home Entertainment, on KSJR FM at St John's University in Collegeville.

Garrison Keillor resigned from The Morning Program in February 1971 in protest of what he considered interference with his musical programming; as part of his protest, he played nothing but the Beach Boys' "Help Me, Rhonda" during one broadcast.

Garrison Keillor has attributed the idea for the live Saturday night radio program to his 1973 assignment to write about the Grand Ole Opry for The New Yorker, but he had already begun showcasing local musicians on the morning show, despite limited studio space.

Garrison Keillor voiced Noir, the cowboy Lefty, and other recurring characters, and provided lead or backup vocals for some of the show's musical numbers.

Also in the second half of the show, Garrison Keillor delivered a monologue called The News from Lake Wobegon, a fictitious town based in part on Garrison Keillor's own hometown of Anoka, Minnesota, and on Freeport and other small towns in Stearns County, Minnesota, where he lived in the early 1970s.

The original PHC ran until 1987, when Garrison Keillor ended it to focus on projects.

Garrison Keillor regularly took the radio company on the road to broadcast from popular venues around the United States; the touring production typically featured local celebrities and skits incorporating local color.

Garrison Keillor toured Scotland with the program to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

Garrison Keillor was the host of The Writer's Almanac, from 1993 to 2017, which, like PHC, was produced and distributed by American Public Media.

Garrison Keillor denied any wrongdoing and said his firing stems from an incident when he touched a woman's bare back while trying to console her.

Garrison Keillor said he had apologized to her soon after, that they had already made up, and that he was surprised to hear the allegations when her lawyer called.

Several fans wrote MPR to protest Garrison Keillor's firing, and within the month, 153 members canceled their memberships because of it.

In January 2018, Garrison Keillor announced he was in mediation with MPR over the firing.

Garrison Keillor received a letter from the MPR CEO, Jon McTaggart, dated April 5,2018, confirming that both sides wanted archives of A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac to be publicly available again.

At age 13, Keillor adopted the pen name "Garrison" to distinguish his personal life from his professional writing.

Garrison Keillor commonly uses "Garrison" in public and in other media.

Garrison Keillor has been called "[o]ne of the most perceptive and witty commentators about Midwestern life" by Randall Balmer in Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism.

Garrison Keillor has written numerous magazine and newspaper articles and more than a dozen books for adults as well as children.

In 2004 Garrison Keillor published a collection of political essays, Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America, and in June 2005 he began a column called The Old Scout, which ran at Salon.

Garrison Keillor wrote the screenplay for the 2006 movie A Prairie Home Companion, directed by Robert Altman.

Probably owing in part to his distinctive North-Central accent, Garrison Keillor is often used as a voice-over actor.

In 2006, Garrison Keillor portrayed himself in a musical comedy film directed by Robert Altman.

Garrison Keillor considers himself a loner and prefers not to make eye contact with people.

Garrison Keillor spoke about his experiences as an autistic person in his keynote address at the 19th Annual Minnesota Autism Conference in 2014.

Garrison Keillor was married to Ulla Skaerved, a former exchange student from Denmark at Keillor's high school whom he re-encountered at a class reunion, from 1985 to 1990.

Between his first and second marriages, Garrison Keillor was romantically involved with Margaret Moos, who worked as a producer of A Prairie Home Companion.

On September 7,2009, Garrison Keillor was briefly hospitalized after suffering a minor stroke.

The publicist concurred, saying that Garrison Keillor did not have contact with any church members or people in the audience before he spoke.

In 2008, Garrison Keillor created a controversy in St Paul when he filed a lawsuit against his neighbor's plan to build an addition on her home, citing his need for "light and air" and a view of "open space and beyond".

Garrison Keillor's home is significantly larger than others in his neighborhood and it would still be significantly larger than his neighbor's with its planned addition.

Garrison Keillor came to an undisclosed settlement with his neighbor shortly after the story became public.