Shekhar Suman (born June 14, 1960, Patna Bihar) is an Indian actor and television personality. He started his career as a television actor in a serial Wah Janab. He moved on to films but did not enjoy much success as an actor. He film debut was in Shashi Kapoor's Utsav. Although his performance was appreciated by the critics, the movie was a commercial failure.
Shekhar has acted in almost 30 films. He was out of the Indian entertainment scenario for quite a while. During this period he was almost entirely supported by his wife, Alka (Kapoor), whom he married on May 4, 1984 after a two year courtship. They have a son, Adhyayan. The couple lost their eldest son, Aayush, in whose memory Shekhar is constructing a hospital in Patna.
He returned to TV in 1993 in Dekh Bhai Dekh, as Sameer, and also affectionately called "Chachu" (Hindi translation: father's younger brother) by the kids. A very successful comedy show, Dekh Bhai Dekh was aired on Doordarshan TV channel in the early 1990s. Almost simultaneously, he also starred in another TV serial Reporter.
He has been quite successful as a TV actor and host since, hosting a few quiz shows. Currently, he hosts hard hitting satirical TV Talk shows on entertainment and news channels, his particular brand of humor being a heady cocktail of obnoxiousness, irreverence, and simple everyday observations.
He has earned quite a good name because of his shows and witty humor on politics, corruption, famous people etc.
His talk shows were Movers and Shakers on the Sony Entertainment Network and Simply Shekar on Zee Television. They were primarily modeled on and adapted from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He until February 2006 hosted The Great Indian Comedy Show on Star One for sometime plus doing some episodes for Dial One aur Jeeto on Sahara TV. In the past also he has done some quiz shows like Bid Bid Boom on Zee Television and He-Man on Star One. He also hosts a show on Star News, Poll Khol (which ambiguously means 'uncovering' in Hindi) in which he speculates humorously over the current political scenario in India.
Apart from this, he is one of the judges of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge along with Navjot Singh Sidhu, a former cricketer. This programme, a stand-up comedy contest is the first of its kind on Indian television.
Recently, he had made his debut in singing, with a music album named 'Kuch Khwaab Aise', through which he wishes to prove that he is un-doubtly a Multi-talented artist. His new album is a melodious collection of eight love ballads whose music has been composed by Aadesh Srivastava and lyrics written by Shyam Raj. It features the Brazilian and Kingfisher model - Bruna. The entire choreography, designing and direction of the music video has been done by Rajiv Goswami and the music is on T-Series.
As of 2006, he has publicly admitted to going through a mid-life crisis.