- Founded famed comedy improvisation troupe The Groundlings in 1974. Saturday Night Live (1975) producer Lorne Michaels often attended performance of the troupe and in fact hired several members as writers and/or performers on "SNL".
- He famously turned down Lorne Michaels' offer to join 'Saturday Night Live" (1975)_ (along with Laraine Newman) after directing the ABC Lily Tomlin special Lily (1975).
- An Oklahoma native, he moved to Los Angeles after college, soon working as stage manager for the San Francisco-based The Committee and L.A.'s Comedy Store. In the early 1970s he began assembling the troupe that would become The Groundlings, a name taken from the ground-seated audiences of William Shakespeare's day.
- Writing, performing country/western music. Running acting workshops.
- As The Groundlings' artistic director, performer and teacher of improv skills, he would help shape modern comedy, introducing to the world such performers as Laraine Newman, Phil Hartman and Paul Reubens who, with Hartman by his side, developed his Pee-wee Herman character during his stint at The Groundlings.
- Austin was born in Oklahoma and later received a theater degree from San Francisco State. After college, he moved to Los Angeles, where he became a stage manager for improv group The Committee. He would later become a performing member of the group in San Francisco. Austin created The Groundlings as a nonprofit improv theater group in 1974, and it quickly grew in popularity. Audience members in the early years included Lily Tomlin and Saturday Night Live (1975) creator Lorne Michaels, who would go on to cast many of the troupe's alumni.
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