The crazy comedian Jim Carrey started out life in the Toronto suburbs of Newmarket, Ontario as the youngest child of four. At the age of 10, Carrey was spontaneous and would preform for anyone willing to watch. He even sent in his résumé to "The Carol Burnett Show". Carrey continued to keep up his comical attitude even through Junior High, and was granted a few moments each day after school to preform a few stand-up routines for his classmates.
But even for a comedian-in-the-making, things aren't always a bunddle of laughs as Carrey's life suddenly took a turn for the worst. He and his family were forced to move to another Toronto suburb, Scarborough, where they took security and janitorial jobs in the
Teens Wheel factory. Jim would work 8-hour shifts after school let out at Agincourt Collegiate Institute
(oldest high school in Scarborough), leaving little time for school work, causing his grades to slip. After a while, Carrey and his family finally caught a little break as they moved into a Volkswagon, waiting until they could move back in town. As things started to look up again, Carrey decided to try doing stand-up in comedy clubs, and dropped out of school at the age of 16. To Carrey's disappointment, his first comedy debute was a complete failure, but he didn't let it stop him.
Carrey continued to work on his acts, and when he turned 17 he moved up to Los Angeles where he got a job at The Comedy Store. During one of Carrey's act, he was noticed by comedian
Rodney Dangerfield. Impressed by Carrey's preformance, Dangerfield signed Carrey up to open his tour preformances for one entire season. This is where Carrey's claim to fame really started, but not before getting married to a waitress by the name of Melissa Womer, of whom Carrey had a daughter with (Jane). Unfortunately the marrige ended up in an ugly divorce, but Carrey moved on to another relationship with actress
Lauren Holly. Still Carrey looked for more oportunity's to preform, and landed a few more spots on television. Among those spots where "The Duck Factory" (1984) - A short lived sit-com, "Once Bitten" (1985) - Where he played the lead role as Mark Kendall, a teen virgin who is pursued by a 400-year-old vampire, played by
Lauren Hutton, "Peggy Sue Got Married" (1986) - In which he played a supporting role, and "Earth Girls Are Easy" (1988) - Where he played an alien by the name of Wiploc. Soon after, Carrey's fellow co-star
Damon Wayons became impressed by his crazy antics, and called up his brother
Keenen Wayans who was currently in the process of putting together a sketch for a
Fox comedy called "In Living Color" (1990). Carrey quickly got the role, and the show became a big success as millions around America began to notice Carrey's unique talent.
From that point on Carrey began getting starring roles in movies, his first being "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" (1994). The movie ended up getting him a
1994 Golden Rasberry Award as Worst New Actor. Still, the movie turned out to be a big hit, as did his two others that very same year; "The Mask" (1994) - Where he played Stanley Ipkiss, and "Dumb and Dumber" (1994) - Which became a huge success, as he and fellow actor
Jeff Daniels played two dimwitted friends on a crazy and hilarious trip to Aspen.
The following year Carrey continued his hilarious facial features, and comedic acts in "Batman Forever" (1995) as the Riddler. He then starred in the sequal to his first move (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective), in "Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls" (1995). Both movies were a big success at the box office, and earned Carrey multi-million dollar paychecks. He then made headlines with his next film, "The Cable Guy" (1996), where he was payed a record amount of money for a comedic actor, 20 million dollars. The movie wasn't the success it was thought to be, and ended up getting poor reviews. But Carrey quickly rebounded with the hilarious comedy "Liar, Liar" (1997). Carrey then decided to change his acting style a bit for the drama movie "The Truman Show" (1998). The production took many moviegoers by suprise, as Carrey showed that he could not only do comedy, but drama as well. The movie won him a Golden Globe, and some predicted he'd win an Oscar as well, which he unfortunately did not. Still, Carrey continued his preformances and faught hard for the role of
Andy Kaufman in "Man on the Moon" (1999). Carrey used a set of bongo drums used by Andy himself, which helped him get the part. The movie allowed him to win another Golden Globe, but still no Oscar nomination. Carrey then took another role in the Farrely brothers film "Me, Myself, and Irene" (2000) which he starred in with actress
Renée Zellweger. Shortly after the film the two announced they were a couple. At that time Carrey was getting ready to play the role of the stingy uptight Grinch in
Ron Howard's film based off of a famous
Dr. Suess book, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (2000). The movie turned was a big hit, as millions watched it accross the globe due to the books already popular reputation. Carrey planned to take a short break from his career after the movie, but instead found himself playing another role as Peter Appleton - a writer who ends up being mistaken as a long lost son in the movie "The Majestic" (2001). After the movie Carrey did what he said he'd do and took a short break from his career, not appearing in any movies during the year 2002.
The following year Carrey was back on track with his new hit movie "Bruce Almighty" (2003), where he played a troubled reporter who inherits God's (played by
Morgan Freeman) powers. He then moved on to his next movie, where critics once again incorrectly predicted his first Oscar nomination, in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004). After that, he took a part as another story book character in
Brad Silbering's film, "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" (2004) - where he played the greedy evil adoptive parent Count Olaf.
Carrey's latest movie was released at the end of 2005, in "Fun with Dick and Jane" (2005) - where he played the role of Dick Harper, a business man who finds that his whole company has just been scandled, and goes bank-ruped. It has also been announced that Jim will be playing a part in a couple other movies, among them are "The Number 23" (2006) and "Used Guys" (2007).
So far Jim's career has been a success, as he continues to show off his strange comedic facial expressions and antics to millions accross the world. We plan to see him starring in many more movies to come, and hope that this crazy elastic faced comedian wont be going anywhere any time soon.
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