David Faustino

David Faustino was born on March 3, 1974, in Los Angeles, California. He began his acting career at a very young age, making his television debut at three months old on the ‘Lily Tomlin Special’. He started acting regularly in 1980 with a role on ‘Little House on the Prairie’. Throughout the early to mid-1980s, Faustino secured guest-starring roles in several notable TV series, including ‘Highway to Heaven’, ‘Family Ties’, ‘St. Elsewhere’, and ‘The Love Boat’. He further expanded his early work with roles in the Disney films ‘Mr. Boogedy’ (1986) and ‘Bride of Boogedy’ (1987), playing the older of two young sons.

Faustino achieved widespread recognition in 1987 when he was cast as Bud Bundy in the Fox sitcom ‘Married… with Children’. This role became his most prominent, lasting for 259 episodes until the series finale in 1997. During and after his time on ‘Married… with Children’, he reprised the role of Bud Bundy in other series like ‘Parker Lewis Can’t Lose’ and ‘Top of the Heap’. He also appeared on ‘Burke’s Law’, ‘MADtv’, and ‘The New Addams Family’. In the 2000s, Faustino explored independent film with ‘Killer Bud’ (2001) and ventured into reality television with ‘Celebrity Boot Camp’ (2002). Collaborating with friends, he created and starred in the Internet comedy series ‘Star-ving’ (2007–09) for Crackle, an online video network backed by Sony Pictures Entertainment, where he played an exaggerated version of himself in 12 episodes.

His career continued with significant voice acting roles, notably in Nickelodeon’s revival of ‘Winx Club’ as Helia (2011) and as Mako in ‘The Legend of Korra’ (2012–2014), a central character named after the late Mako Iwamatsu. He also voiced Dagur the Deranged in ‘DreamWorks Dragons’ (2013–2014) and ‘Dragons: Race to the Edge’ (2015–2018). Beyond acting, Faustino co-founded and co-hosted a nightclub in Los Angeles called Balistyx, and released a rap album under the same name in 1992. He has continued to have guest appearances on television shows such as ‘The Young and the Restless’ (2017) and ‘Bones’ (2017), often playing fictionalized versions of himself, and has lent his voice to animated features like ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’ (2023).