Early life

Sterry's parents were immigrants from Newcastle, England. He grew up in New Jersey; Birmingham, Alabama; Virginia, Minnesota; and Dallas, Texas. He attended boarding school at Darrow School in New Lebanon, NY, went to Immaculate Heart College in Hollywood for one year, where he also was employed as sex worker. This became the subject of his first memoir, Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent. He then transferred to Reed College, where he studied existentialism and poetry, and graduated in 1978. At 21, was offered a professional soccer contract.

Career

He started in show business as a stand-up comedian and improviser in the San Francisco during the early 1980s. He also began to act in small productions. In 1984, he moved to New York, where he appeared in commercials for McDonald's, AT&T, and Levi's, eventually becoming the spokesman for Publisher's Clearing House. He also performed in many Off-Off Broadway plays. In 1985 he was hired to be the master of ceremonies at Chippendales. Nick de Noia, the creator of the show, was assassinated while Sterry was working for him. This would become the subject of his second memoir, Master of Ceremonies: A True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates & Chippendales.^[1] He had a role in the film Memoirs of an Invisible Man. He appeared in a pilot for Eddie Murphy's production company. It starred Margaret Cho, and was not picked up by ABC. This led to a string of guest starring roles in black sitcoms like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Sister Sister and Roc. He became a regular on the HBO/CTW show Encyclopedia, where he played characters ranging from George Washington to Napoleon Bonaparte to Leif Erikson.

He began writing books in 2001, with the publication of Satchel Sez: The World, Wit & Wisdom of Leroy Sawtchel Paige (Random House). His next book, the 2002 memoir, Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent,^[2] details his experiences as a teenage hustler in 1970s Hollywood.

Sterry ran a writing workshop for at-risk teenagers and survivors of the sex industry for the United States Department of Justice in Washington DC in 2005.

He performs in a show titled Sex Worker Literati, which consists of people from the sex industry reading and performing original works.^[3] Sterry is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post^[4] and NPR^[5][6]

With the publication of The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published (Workman, 2010), he co-founded the company The Book Doctors, and developed a show called Pitchapalooza, where writers get one minute to pitch their books ideas to a panel of publishing experts.^[7][8]