David Henry Sterry

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David Henry Sterry (born June 2, 1957) is an American writer, actor/comic, activist, and former sex worker. His parents were immigrants from Newcastle, England. He grew up in New Jersey, Alabama, Minnesota, and Texas. He attended Darrow School and spent a year at Immaculate Heart College in Hollywood, where he worked as a sex worker, a chapter that inspired his first memoir Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent (2002). He then studied existentialism and poetry at Reed College, graduating in 1978. At 21 he was offered a professional soccer contract but chose show business, starting as a stand-up comedian and improviser in San Francisco in the early 1980s.

He moved to New York in 1984, appearing in commercials for McDonald's, AT&T and Levi's, and becoming a spokesman for Publishers Clearing House. He acted in Off-Off-Broadway plays and, in 1985, worked as the master of ceremonies for Chippendales; the show's creator Nick de Noia was murdered while Sterry was there—a story he later wrote about in Master of Ceremonies: A True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates & Chippendales. He acted in Memoirs of an Invisible Man, appeared in a pilot for Eddie Murphy's production company (starring Margaret Cho) that was not picked up, and later had guest roles on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Sister, Sister, and Roc. He became a regular on the HBO/CTW show Encyclopedia, playing roles from George Washington to Napoleon.

Sterry began writing books in 2001 with Satchel Sez: The World, Wit & Wisdom of Leroy Sawtchel Paige. His 2002 memoir Chicken recounts his teenage years as a hustler in 1970s Hollywood. He has spoken at a U.S. Department of Justice Survivors Conference and performs in Sex Worker Literati, a show featuring works by sex workers. He also writes for HuffPost and NPR.

In 2009 he published Hos, Hookers, Call Girls & Rent Boys. In 2010 he and his wife Arielle Eckstut published The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published. They also co-founded The Book Doctors and created Pitchapalooza, a one-minute book-pitch contest for writers.