HOLLYWOOD -- The creator of some of television's most popular situation comedies today received the 2,380th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
"I've had angels in my life that have carried me," an emotional Chuck Lorre said at the late-morning ceremony across the street from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. "There's a series of miracles that lead to something as extraordinary as this."
Lorre said the star was for his children, Asa and Nikki, who were at the ceremony.
"When they were born, I was determined to take care of them, no matter what," Lorre said. "No matter what leads to here."
Lorre co-created and produces television's most-watched comedy, CBS' "Two and a Half Men," whose stars, Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer, preceded him in speaking, as did Christine Baranski, the Emmy-winning co-star of the 1995-98 CBS comedy "Cybill," which Lorre produced.
"Through your brilliant and tireless commitment to our insanely dysfunctional, yet lovable TV family, you have changed my life forever, both personally and professionally," said Sheen, whose star is 13 away from
Lorre's.
Sheen was a major movie star until drug problems and a messy divorce from actress Denise Richards prompted him to take a role in the small-screen sitcom that revived his career.
Baranski also said her life was changed through her association with Lorre, with her role as the best friend of Cybill Shepherd's character both enabling her to pay for her children's college educations and making her "seen off camera as a witty, glamorous, martini-swilling woman."
"I've been offered a lot of free drinks because of 'Cybill,'" Baranski said.
Baranski described Lorre as "immensely bright, wonderfully dark, one of the wittiest guys I know."
"But when it comes to the craft of comedy writing, he is dead serious and dead tired, because he works so hard," Baranski said. "It takes enormous skill and style to produce over 20 shows a season. That he has not one, but two hit shows on the air at present is a testament to how fine and committed a
writer he is."
Lorre is also the co-creator and a producer of CBS' "The Big Bang Theory."
"Without question, Chuck is the current king of comedy on primetime television," CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler told City News Service earlier this week. "He is without peer in creating characters that audiences want to watch and producing series that make viewers laugh."
A native of Long Island born Oct. 18, 1952, Lorre got his start as a guitarist/singer, touring the nation and writing several hundred pop songs, which, he said self-deprecatingly, "helped keep me out of the big time."
The lone exception was Debbie Harry's top 40 hit "French Kissing in the USA."
After more than a decade on the road, Lorre turned his attention to television, writing scripts for such animated series as "Heathcliff and the Catillac Cats," "Muppet Babies" and "Pole Position."
A spec primetime script soon led to freelance work on the syndicated comedy "My Two Dads." But Lorre's big break came in 1991 when he became a supervising producer on ABC's "Roseanne," then television's most-watched comedy. Lorre said that he wished that "I could end on a joke, but maybe the joke is down there -- my name is next to Stan Laurel and Dick Van Dyke."
