| Net Worth: | $30 Million |
|---|---|
| Date of birth: | March 18, 1962 (62 years old) |
| Gender: | Male |
| Profession: | TV Show Host |
| Nationality: | American |
Television personality best known for hosting the popular Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs. He also worked as a pitchman for the Ford Motor Company.
He studied communications at Towson University in his native Maryland.
He advertised such products as Caterpillar and Lee Premium Select Jeans.
Career
Television Career: After graduating from university in 1985, Mike Rowe starting hosting various TV shows. One of his earliest hosting jobs was for Your New Home, which aired on WJZ-TV and ran for 15 years. In the 1990s, he landed a gig as a host for a CD-ROM trivia game. He then booked a job as a host for a home-shopping channel called QVC – a role he didn’t take seriously at all. Later in the 90s, Mike Rowe hosted an instructional guide for a satellite TV service.
Personal Life
He started the show Dirty Jobs in honor of his father and grandfather.
He appeared as Tim Allen’s brother on the ABC sitcom Last Man Standing.
Quotes
“Dirty Jobs’ is maybe the simplest show in the history of TV, with the possible exception of ‘The Gong Show’. I go around the country; we’ve shot in every state. And we spend a day with people who do jobs that are dirty or dangerous or ridiculous or difficult.”
— Mike Rowe
“It’s funny; it’s a real balancing act. In TV, everybody’s talking about authenticity. In order to make ‘Dirty Jobs’ authentic, I really can’t be overly informed. The minute I am, I become a host… It’s a very tricky business paying a tribute to work, because TV is very bad at it.”
— Mike Rowe
“We need to tell better stories of men and women who master a trade. We have to stop telling kids to blindly follow their passion and show them the opportunities that exist. That was the big, overarching message of ‘Dirty Jobs.’”
— Mike Rowe
“It really wasn’t until I was 15 or 16 years old that I realized that the church was always there; it was always a part of what we were doing, even if it wasn’t at the center of everything we did.”
— Mike Rowe
“Every bad joke, every endorsement deal, all of the things that a typical host would normally get creamed for, people don’t mind, because they know I don’t cheat when it comes to the work I actually try. I’m a lab rat. I’m a perpetual apprentice. The joke is on me if there is one.”
— Mike Rowe