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James Eugene Carrey (born January 17, 1962) is a Golden Globe-winning
Canadian-American A-list film actor and comedian. He is known for his manic,
slapstick performances in comedy films such as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Ace
Ventura: When Nature Calls, The Mask, Dumb & Dumber, Me, Myself & Irene,
The Cable Guy, Liar Liar, and Bruce Almighty. Carrey has also achieved critical
success in dramatic roles in films such as The Truman Show, Man on the Moon, and
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
 Early
life
Jim Carrey was born in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada to Kathleen Oram, a homemaker,
and Percy Carrey, an accountant. He has three older siblings, John, Patricia and
Rita. The family was Catholic and has French Canadian ancestry (the original
surname was Carré). A comedian from an early age, Carrey mailed his résumé to The
Carol Burnett Show when he was 10 years old. He was the quintessential class clown,
and his teachers often gave him a few minutes at the end of each school day to do a
stand-up comedy routine for his classmates.
After the family moved to Scarborough when Carrey was 14 the family lived in a
house of historical importance. Carrey attended Blessed Trinity Catholic School in
North York for two years, then began at Agincourt Collegiate Institute,
Scarborough's oldest high school.
Carrey lived in Burlington, Ontario for eight years and attended Aldershot High
School. In a Hamilton Spectator interview (February 2007) he mentioned that "if his
career in show business hadn't panned out he would probably be working today in
Hamilton, Ontario at the Dofasco steel mills." When looking across the Burlington
Bay towards Hamilton he could see the mills and thought "those were where the great
jobs were." He already had experience working in a factory in Richmond Hill,
Ontario and had been somewhat resigned to that path before breaking out.
Start in
comedy
In 1979, Carrey started performing stand-up comedy at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, where
he rose to become a headliner in February 1981, shortly after his 19th birthday and
was managed by Leatrice Spevack. After Carrey's debut as a featured act, a reviewer
in the Toronto Star raved that he had just seen "a genuine star coming to life." In
the early 1980s, he moved to Los Angeles and started working at The Comedy Store,
where he was noticed by comedian Rodney Dangerfield. Dangerfield liked Carrey's
performance so much that he signed Carrey up to open Dangerfield's tour
performances.
Carrey turned his attention towards the film industry. He auditioned to be a
castmember for NBC's Saturday Night Live when the show was looking for new cast
members for their 1980–1981 season. Carrey was never chosen to be a cast member
(although he finally hosted the show in May 1996). His first lead role on
television was Skip Tarkenton, a young animation producer on NBC's The Duck
Factory. The short-lived comedy, which aired from April 12, 1984 to July 11, 1984,
offered a behind-the-scenes look at the crew that produced a children's
cartoon.
Carrey continued performing in small character roles in film and television, most
notably 1985's Once Bitten. His small roles eventually led to a friendship with
fellow comedian Damon Wayans. The two co-starred as aliens in 1989's Earth Girls
are Easy. When Wayans' brother Keenen was putting together a sketch comedy show for
Fox called In Living Color, Carrey was hired as a cast member. His unusual
characters, including masculine female bodybuilder Vera de Milo and the masochistic
safety inspector Fire Marshall Bill Burns (whose dangerous, ill-advised "safety
tips" were the target of censors and television watchdog groups who saw Carrey's
performance as something that younger viewers would see as harmless fun and try to
imitate unadulteratedly), as well his on-screen behavior caught America's (and
Hollywood's) attention.
Film
career
Carrey made his film debut in the film Rubberface (1983),
which was known as 'Introducing...Janet' at the time of release, since Carrey
only played a minor part. But later the same year, he got the leading part in
Damian Lee's Canadian skiing comedy Copper Mountain, where he among other
things did an amusing impersonation of Sammy Davis Jr.. But since the movie
had a runtime of less than one hour, and half of it was just musical
performances by artists such as Rita Coolidge and Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins, it
wasn't considered as a genuine feature film. However, a few years later, he
had his first mainstream starring role in the dark comedy Once Bitten as Mark
Kendall, a teen virgin who is pursued by a 400-year old female vampire (Lauren
Hutton). After supporting roles in films such as Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
Earth Girls are Easy (1988) and The Dead Pool (1988) Carrey did not experience
box office success and stardom until he was cast in the starring role in the
1994 comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, which premiered only months before In
Living Color ended. The film was panned by critics, and helped earn him a 1995
Golden Raspberry Award nomination as Worst New Star.
Jim Carrey with Jeff Daniels in Dumb and DumberHowever, the film was a huge
commercial success, as were Carrey's two other starring roles, in The Mask and Dumb
and Dumber, both released the same year.
In 1995, Carrey appeared as the Riddler in Batman Forever and reprised his role as
Ace Ventura in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Both films were successful at the
box office and earned Carrey multi-million-dollar paychecks.
Carrey made headlines when it was revealed that he was paid twenty million dollars
for his next film, The Cable Guy (directed by Ben Stiller), a record sum for a
comedy actor. The attention drawn to his salary, coupled with negative reviews for
the film and its character's dark mood in contrast to his other performances, all
contributed to the film's mediocre earnings, although the film is regarded as sadly
under-rated by a significant number of fans. Carrey quickly rebounded with the
successful and lighter Liar Liar, a return to his trademark comedy style.
Carrey as Truman Burbank in The Truman ShowDespite the regular comedy successes,
Carrey took a chance to play a more serious role, and a slight paycut to star in
The Truman Show (1998), a change of pace that led to forecasts of an Academy Award
nomination. Although the movie was nominated for three other awards, Carrey did not
personally receive a nomination, leading him to joke that "it's an honor just to be
nominated...oh no", during his appearance on the Oscar telecast. However, Carrey
did win a Golden Globe (Best Actor in a Drama) and an MTV Movie Award (Best Male
Performance). The same year, Carrey appeared as a fictionalized version of himself
on the final episode of Garry Shandling's The Larry Sanders Show, making an
impression by ripping deliberately into Shandling's character.
In 1999, Carrey won the role of comedian Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon. 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 be cast. Coincidentally, Carrey was born thirteen years to the day after
Kaufman. Despite critical acclaim, he was not nominated for an Academy
Award--though again, won a consecutive Best Actor Golden Globe award.
In 2000, Carrey re-teamed with the Farrelly Brothers (who had directed him in Dumb
& Dumber) in their comedy, Me, Myself and Irene, about a state trooper with
multiple personalities who romances a woman played by Renée Zellweger. The film
grossed $24 million dollars on its opening weekend and $90 million by the end of
its domestic run. Carrey has since continued to appear in successful comedies as
well as more dramatic roles. His performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind (2004) earned high praise from critics, who once again incorrectly predicted
that Carrey would receive an Oscar nomination, although the film won an Academy
Award for Best Original Screenplay, and co-star Kate Winslet received a nomination
for her performance. (Again, Carrey was nominated for a Golden Globe for this
performance, his sixth.)
In 2003, Carrey re-teamed with Tom Shadyac for the financially successful comedy
Bruce Almighty. Earning over $242 million in the U.S. and over $484 million
worldwide, this film became the second highest grossing live-action comedy of all
time.
Carrey as Count Olaf in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate EventsIn 2004, he
played Count Olaf in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which was
based on the popular children's novels. In 2005, Carrey starred in a remake of Fun
with Dick and Jane, playing Dick, a husband who loses his job after his company
went bankrupt.
In 2007, Carrey reunited with Joel Schumacher, director of Batman Forever, for The
Number 23, a psychological thriller co-starring Virginia Madsen and Danny Huston.
In the film, he portrayed a man who becomes obsessed with an obscure book he thinks
is based on his life.
Carrey has stated that he finds the prospect of reprising a character to be less
enticing than taking on a new role, and fans say he rarely turns down roles because
he enjoys trying new things.
Personal
life
Carrey has been married twice, first to former actress and
Comedy Store waitress Melissa Womer, with whom he has a daughter, Jane Erin
Carrey (b. September 1987). They were married on March 28, 1987 and were
officially divorced in late 1995.
After his separation from Womer in 1994, Carrey began dating his Dumb &
Dumber co-star Lauren Holly. They were married on September 23, 1996; the marriage
lasted less than a year. Carrey dated actress Renée Zellweger, whom he met on the
set of Me, Myself and Irene, although their relationship ended in a broken
engagement in December 2000.
During 2004, Jim started dating his massage therapist Tiffany O. Silver. In
December 2005, Carrey began dating actress/model Jenny McCarthy. The pair have
since denied engagement rumors. In the May 2006 issue of Playboy Magazine (pg 48),
it was mentioned that he has dated model Anine Bing.
He attended a Presbyterian Church with his family in the early 1990s. Carrey really
does have a chipped tooth; for his role in Dumb & Dumber, he simply removed the
cap. He owns a Gulfstream Aerospace Gulfstream V and also drives a Saleen S7 (the
car Bruce got after he became God in Bruce Almighty). He is a big fan of the death
metal band Cannibal Corpse.
Carrey received U.S. citizenship on October 7, 2004 and now has dual citizenship
between the U.S. and his native Canada, where he has had a star on Canada's Walk of
Fame in Toronto since 1998. He went public about his bouts with depression in a
November 2004 interview on 60 Minutes.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Jim
Carrey - Generator - Biography
