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Jim Carrey

Carrey was born and grew up in the Toronto suburb of Newmarket, Ontario to a family with some French Canadian roots (the original surname was when he was 10 years old. The teachers in Carrey's high school gave him a few minutes at the end of each school day to do a stand-up comedy routine for his classmates.

The Carrey family fell on hard times and were forced to move to the Toronto suburb of Scarborough, where they took security and janitorial jobs in the Titan Wheels factory. Carrey began working eight-hour shifts each day after school where he attended Agincourt Collegiate Institute, Scarborough's oldest high school. Eventually, the Carrey family adjusted by living on a relative's lawn out of the family Volkswagen van until they could move back into town.

Carrey dropped out of high school at the age of 16 and began to work in comedy clubs with an act that included impersonations of celebrities such as Michael Landon and Jimmy Stewart. In 1979 at the age of 17, he moved to Los Angeles and started working in The Comedy Store, where he was noticed by comedian Rodney Dangerfield. Dangerfield liked Carrey's act so much that he signed Carrey up to open Dangerfield's tour performances.

Carrey began to work occasionally in television and in small parts in movies, which eventually led to a friendship with Damon Wayans. When Damon's brother Keenen was putting together a sketch comedy show for Fox called , Carrey was hired as a cast member. Carrey's unusual characters and on-screen behavior caught America's attention.

as Mark Kendall, a teen virgin who is pursued by a 400-year old vampire (Lauren Hutton). Carrey, however, did not experience box office success until almost a decade later when he got a starring role in the comedy ended. The film was panned by the critics, and helped earn him a 1994 Golden Raspberry Award nomination as Worst New Star. However, the film was a commercial success, as were two other releases that same year, . Both films were successful at the box office and earned Carrey multi-million-dollar paychecks.

Carrey made headlines when it was revealed that for his next film, , he was paid twenty million dollars, a record payday for a comedic actor. The attention drawn to his salary, coupled with negative reviews and the character's dark mood in contrast to his other performances, all contributed to the film's box office failure. Jim Carrey quickly rebounded with the successful .

Despite the regular comedy successes, Jim Carrey took a chance and a slight paycut to star in (1998), a change of pace that led to forecasts of an Academy Award nomination which did not happen, leading Jim Carrey to appear on the show and joke "it's an honor just to be nominated ... oh no." The same year, Carrey got to flex more of his acting muscles with an appearance as the fictionalized version of himself on Garry Shandling's , making an unforgettable impression by ripping deliberately into Shandling's character and exposing a not so funny man behind the mask.

In 1999 Carrey fought hard and won the role of comedian Andy Kaufman in . Several actors including Edward Norton were interested in the role, but Carrey's audition, including an act with the bongo drums Kaufman used in his performances, helped him win the role. (Note: It has been said that Carrey played Kaufman better then Kaufman did, with many people praising how well the character turned out). Coincidentally, Carrey was born 13 years to the day after Kaufman.

Jim Carrey continues to appear in successful comedies as well as more dramatic roles. His performance in (2004) earned high praise from critics, who once again incorrectly predicted that Carrey would receive his first Oscar nomination.

Carrey played the young animator Skip Tarkenton on NBC's The Duck Factory. The comedy, which aired April 12, 1984 - July 11, 1984, offered a behind-the-scenes look at the crew that produced a children's cartoon.[1]

Carrey has been married twice, first to Melissa Womer with whom he had a daughter, Jane, then to actress Lauren Holly in a marriage that lasted less than a year.

Jim in 1999 re-teamed with The Farrelly Brothers to do their comedy . The story was about a state trooper with multiple personalities who fights for a woman, Irene played by (Renee Zellweger). The movie grossed $24 million dollars on it's opening weekend and grossed $90 million nationwide. Jim and Renee started dating each other after the movie was completed. Jim and Renee's romance ended in December 2000 after a year together.

More recently, Carrey became a (dual) U.S. citizen on October 7, 2004. He went public about his bouts with depression in a November 2004 George Martin included Carrey's cover version of "I Am the Walrus" when he produced a 1998 Beatles tribute called