

In 1978, he auditioned at Pips, a local comedy club in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, doing comedic impressions, then headlined there the following week as "Andrew Clay." His act at the time included an impression of John Travolta in Grease and Jerry Lewis as The Nutty Professor. He played the drums at James Madison High School and later worked as a drummer in the Catskills in the late 1970s. Clay was doing impressions and entertaining his family in his living room by age 5. Clay's father worked in real estate sales and also as a boxer. His parents are Jacqueline and Fred Silverstein he has one sister. He grew up in the neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay. Clay was born to a Jewish family and raised in Brooklyn, New York.
