David H. Lawrence XVII

David H. Lawrence XVII
About
Character	Eric Doyle
Origin	Cleveland, OH, USA
Gender
Website
IMDb profile

David H. Lawrence XVII is the actor who portrays Eric Doyle.

About

David Lawrence is an actor, writer, comedian, and radio personality, based in Los Angeles. His radio show, The David Lawrence Show, airs in numerous markets and on satellite radio. David was an original founder of the American Comedy Network. For more than a decade, he hosted Online Tonight, a technology-oriented radio show, however he recently sold the name and format to The Smart Family.

David is not actually the 17th David H. Lawrence in his family. On his radio show he once explained that when his credit first appeared in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), he was assigned the XVII designation because he was the 17th person named David Lawrence in their system. When the time came to register his name with the various acting unions, such as the Screen Actors Guild, their rules require actors to have unique names in order to avoid confusion. So he, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, chose the XVII designation from IMDB.[1] In many roles, however, he has been credited simply as David Lawrence.

David grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was a childhood friend of comedian Drew Carey. Carey has publicly credited Lawrence for helping him get started in comedy by encouraging him to write material for a morning radio show that Lawrence hosted in the 1980s. He and Carey remain close; Lawrence is reportedly advising Carey on the development of several online entertainment projects.

In addition to acting and radio work, Lawrence worked in technology including stints at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and America Online. Lawrence's voice can still be heard on the automated voice system for America Online's technical support telephone system. Although others claim credit, David Lawrence is arguably one of the creators of the concept of podcasting. His "Personal Netcast," a downloadable version of his radio show, made its debut in 1994, long before the existence of the iPod and well before later claimants to the throne. He also developed a micro-payments system, called Show Taxi, for paid podcast distribution.

This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it. In particular, this section needs David's credits.

External Links

• Official Website
• Secrets of Screen Acting Podcast
• Interview with David Lawrence at Television Without Pity, 10/22/08