How Josh Gad became a comic sensation despite lifetime of anxiety and self-doubt

Josh Gad has cojones — or maybe, since his Olaf character from “Frozen” has become a Disney icon, the word should be a more family-friendly “gumption.”Consider that after a lifetime of acting lessons, four years of drama school at Carnegie Mellon, and three years after college of booking only one professional gig (a single episode of “ER”), the wannabe actor passed on what seemed like his big break.  In 2005, Gad was offered the stage role of Barfée in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” but since it was running in San Francisco, Gad said no. He wanted Broadway.“Aim higher,” Gad writes he told himself in “In Gad We Trust: A Tell-Some” (Gallery Books, out Tuesday).Gad grew up in Florida, the son of a typical Jewish mother and atypical emerald dealer of a father.Gad’s comedic career began when his parents split, leaving his mother depressed.

Gad first fell in love with humor at age 4, when his Holocaust-survivor grandparents took him to see a Borscht Belt comedian in the Catskills, helping Gad to understand that his mother required the salve of humor.“If there was one way to break my mother from her stupor, dammit, it would be laughter,” he writes.Gad would repeat jokes to his Mom, do voices and make faces, run around with his underwear pulled up to his nipples like a baby.  Her laughter became like a drug to young Gad, cementing a career path from which he would never look back.“I was now trying to make everyone around me laugh at all times.”Gad’s mother signed him up for children’s theatre at the Hollywood Playhouse. By his senior year in high school, Gad was starring in stage productions and winning national oration competitions.  He was class president with a pretty girlfriend and a cool car, but his acting success was far from pre-ordained. Gad wasn’t accepted at his two first choices for college (Juilliard and Northwestern), which led him on a downward spiral of self-doubt and depression. If Gad had a...