He starred alongside Rodney Dangerfield and Dom DeLuise as the titular character in the gangster parody film The Godson.
McDonald was born in Montréal, Québec, the son of Sheila and Hamilton "Hammy" McDonald, who was a dental equipment salesman. He moved to Los Angeles, California, at the age of seven, after his father was transferred there. His family subsequently lived in Toronto, Ontario, as well. McDonald has a younger sister, Sandra.
During an interview on WTF with Marc Maron, McDonald discussed his father's severe alcoholism, which inspired the Kids in the Hall sketches "Daddy Drank" and "Girl Drink Drunk." Although he calls his mother "a wonderful woman," she was nevertheless reluctant to leave his father until Kevin turned 19, when his father's drinking had escalated to two bottles of vodka daily. McDonald, his mother and sister rented an apartment, where they quietly moved their belongings "every night [after his father would] collapse on the stairs." Once they had completely moved, his parents divorced, his father lost his job, went bankrupt and lived in a homeless shelter for a year, during which he abstained from drinking (although he alleged "his roommates were drinking Drano"); coincidentally, McDonald would use the same building to rehearse with The Kids in the Hall as they were starting out on stage. His father was able to find employment at a flower shop, then an apartment and, over time, resume his career in dental equipment sales. Eventually, he did drink again, but not to the extent he had earlier in his life. He died of an aneurysm in 2004. McDonald would use his relationship with his father as the basis for a one-man show, Hammy and the Kids, in which he said he had no happy ending to the story of his father. However, during an interview with Marc Maron, he said after one performance of his one-man show, he was approached by a stranger who said that he had served his father as a bartender, and that his father mentioned how proud he was of his son, the famous comedian, which moved McDonald to tears "like the ending to a bad movie."

Return to Kevin McDonald Autograph Profile