Al Isaacs

I’m a retired improv comedian and voice actor who found out—completely by accident—in my early 50s that I was adopted. A call from my mother’s oncologist revealed a secret that had been kept my entire life, at the same moment my father was in hospice, and my mother’s dementia was steadily erasing the very secret I’d just learned. All during the pandemic.

After my father’s funeral, I took a DNA test and discovered a half-sister who had been searching for me for over 20 years. She, and her mom, gave me the first clues that started a yearlong search for my own birth mother, uncovering a story that included what turned to have been a black-market adoption—handled by the most notorious baby broker of the 1970's and 80's.

I also learned my birth mother was a performer in New York, which made my own life choices feel either deeply genetic or cosmically ironic. The fact that she won what was essentially the first televised "American Idol" not only made my life suddenly make sense but provided the clues that ultimately lead me to a reunion 53 years in the making.

My memoir, Finding Mary Smith, isn’t about perfect reunions or clean answers. It’s about identity, secrecy, caregiving, creative inheritance, and the idea that some truths arrive exactly when—and how—they’re supposed to. I’m a thoughtful, conversational guest who’s comfortable with humor, nuance, and letting stories breathe.