Daniel Stern

The man who played Marv, the burglar with a tarantula on his face, now spends his days with clay, bronze and tangerine trees. Daniel Stern lives on a ranch in Ventura, California, where he raises cattle, grows tangerines and sculpts [9] [8]. In September 2026 he was reported to be preparing a life-size bronze of Marv for the restored Home Alone house in Illinois [11].

Early life in Bethesda

Daniel Jacob Stern was born on 28 August 1957 in Bethesda, Maryland [4]. As of November 2026 he is 69 years old [4]. His father was a social worker and his mother ran a day care center [3]. He is dyslexic, and his memoir describes how he learned to work around it in a career built on reading scripts [7].

Clay came early. A 2010 profile says he found a potter's wheel as a toddler and played in mud, and that he later worked in Play-Doh and papier-mâché before settling on bronze [6]. A 2015 profile adds that he built his own potter's wheel in high school and kept it in his parents' basement in Bethesda [5]. Acting came in parallel. TV Guide says that after high school he was cast as a strolling lute player in the Washington Shakespeare Festival's production of As You Like It [3]. The Acorn says he left high school in his senior year for New York and found work within four months [5]. The two accounts do not give the same order of events, so the exact timing is unclear. In New York he worked in Off-Broadway theater, with Split and Frankie and Annie among the plays TV Guide lists [3].

The break: Breaking Away and Diner

Stern made his film debut as Cyril in Breaking Away in 1979 [5]. Three years later came the part that put him on casting lists: Diner in 1982, which The Acorn calls his breakout role [5]. From there he kept working without a gap. By his own account in the 2024 memoir's publisher bio, the list of films he is known for includes Hannah and Her Sisters, Blue Thunder, Very Bad Things and Whip It [1]. He also appeared in The Milagro Beanfield War, directed by Robert Redford, which he calls "one of the sweetest movies I've ever seen" [7].

His other long-running credit has no face attached. Stern created the role of the adult narrator on The Wonder Years [1] [4]. He has also provided voices for animated series such as The Simpsons and Family Guy [5].

Home Alone and the Marv years

In 1990 Stern played Marv, one of the two Wet Bandits, opposite Joe Pesci and Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone [8]. He returned for Home Alone 2: Lost in New York in 1992, when the pair became the "Sticky Bandits" [9]. The child lead was Macaulay Culkin.

The money and the casting were messier than the films. In the memoir, Stern writes that his first agreement was for "three hundred thousand dollars for six weeks of work" [7]. For the sequel he received $1.5 million plus a 1 percent gross point, though deductions for his agent, lawyer and accountant, and taxes, cut the take-home amount considerably [7]. He has also said he nearly lost the part. He backed out of the deal over contract disagreements, the role was recast, and after a couple of days of rehearsals the producers asked him to return [8]. He told the Los Angeles Times in May 2024, "I almost blew it a couple times," calling it one of "the stupidest decisions in my showbusiness life" [8].

City Slickers and a turn behind the camera

In 1991 he played Phil Berquist, the sad-sack friend in City Slickers [12]. The film put him on a cattle drive with Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby [7]. In 1992 he was nominated for an American Comedy Award as funniest supporting actor in a motion picture [3].

He also directed. Rookie of the Year, which was filmed at Wrigley Field, is the film he directed [7] [1].

Best-known work

Year	Title	Role
1979	Breaking Away	Cyril [5]
1982	Diner	Breakout role [5]
1990	Home Alone	Marv [8]
1991	City Slickers	Phil Berquist [12]
1992	Home Alone 2: Lost in New York	Marv [9]
2015	Manhattan (season 2)	Dr. Glen Babbit [5]
2023	For All Mankind	Series regular [1] [10]

Later screen work

On television he played Dr. Glen Babbit in Manhattan, whose second season premiered in October 2015 [5]. He appears in Apple TV's For All Mankind [1] [10]. His publisher's bio also lists a project he planned to direct and star in, Everything's Peachy, an adaptation of his own Off-Broadway play [1]. TV Guide notes that he toured Iraq and Kuwait with the United Service Organizations [3], and the memoir review describes a USO Handshake Tour of the Middle East during the Iraq War [7].

Awards and recognition

The film and television honours are mostly nominations. TV Guide's list has a 1992 American Comedy Award nomination for funniest supporting actor in a motion picture, a 2007 TV Land Award nomination for favorite heard-but-not-seen character (a nod to The Wonder Years), a 2010 Movies for Grownups Award nomination for best grownup love story, and a 2020 Canadian Screen Award nomination for performance by an actor in a supporting role [3]. The same page lists wins in 2008 (an Anniversary Award) and 2019 (a Special Award for best supporting actor) without naming who gave them [3].

Outside acting, the honour he points to is for service. In 2010 he and his wife Laure received the President's Volunteer Service Award, presented by President Obama, for work with young people [6]. His publisher's bio calls it the President's Call to Service Award [1]. His own studio blog gives the same award as the "Call to Service Award," won with Laure in 2010 [2].

Sculptor: bronze figures and public commissions

Stern is self-taught [5]. By 2010 he worked only in bronze and focused on the human form, aiming at movement and a single moment in time. He compared a sculpture to a still frame from a film [6]. His workspace had moved from his Malibu garage to a studio in Culver City [6].

Public work followed. Handstand, a super-sized bronze of a man balanced on one hand, was part of San Diego's Urban Trees exhibition along the bay [6]. His blog lists Handstand in Pasadena's first rotating public art program, with installation scheduled for 31 August 2011 [2]. In May 2011 four of his bronzes were shown by the Donna Seager Gallery at the San Francisco Fine Art Fair at Fort Mason [2].

In 2015 the City of Agoura Hills bought Angle of Repose, a bronze of a drowsy man asleep in a chair with a book, for $14,000 from developer fees [5]. It was installed at the Agoura Hills Public Library, with a reception on 26 August 2015 [5]. That year he was also working on a life-size flamenco dancer for a winery and a Temple City piece about motion, and he said he worked about ten hours a day on commissions [5]. TV Guide lists him as an artist in residence at Studio Channel Islands Art Center [3].

Memoir: Home and Alone

Viva Editions, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, published his memoir Home and Alone on 21 May 2024 [1]. The book runs to 314 pages and covers his films, with stories about Robert Redford, Mel Gibson and The Wonder Years, along with life as a sculptor and rancher [1]. All royalties go to the Boys & Girls Clubs [7].

Relationships

Stern is married to Laure Mattos [7]. Reports on the length of the marriage differ by date. In 2015 The Acorn said he had been married for 30 years [5], and his publisher's 2024 bio says 45 years [1]. Laure is known locally for her work with the Boys & Girls Club and other community groups [5]. We found no reliable reporting on earlier public relationships, so this page does not list any.

The couple have three children. In 2015 The Acorn named them as Ella, then a medical student, Sophie, a musician, and Henry, who worked with state Senator Fran Pavley [5]. The 2024 publisher bio says the children include a doctor, a musician and a California state senator [1].

Stern co-founded the Malibu Foundation for Youth and Families and the Boys and Girls Club of Malibu Teen Center, which served more than 1,200 young people a year by 2010 [6]. He also coached sports teams, mainly for children's activities [6].

What he does now

The 2015 profiles put the family home in Malibu, with a Camarillo studio [5]. More recent reports place him on a ranch in Ventura, where he raises cattle and grows tangerines, juices them, freezes the juice and gives it away to friends [8]. He posts about farm life on TikTok [10].

The Marv sculpture is the project to watch. The new owners of the McCallister house in Winnetka, Illinois, which was bought for $5.5 million in 2025 and is being returned to its 1990s look, commissioned a life-size bronze he calls "Marv by Marv" [11]. It shows the scene with the tarantula, and Stern said the work "really forced me to take a good, hard look at myself" [11]. It was expected to be unveiled in the following months, in the living room [11].