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James Eugene Redmond Carré (Carrey)

Also Known As: "Jim"
Current Location:: Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States
Birthdate:
Birthplace: Newmarket, York Regional Municipality, Ontario, Canada
Immediate Family:

Son of Percy Carré and Kathkene Oram
Ex-husband of Lauren Holly and Private
Ex-partner of Jenny McCarthy
Father of Jane Carrey
Brother of Patricia Mitchelle; Private and Rita Fournier

Occupation: Actor, comedian, producer, screenwriter
Managed by: Nicole Jacqueline Aldrich
Last Updated:

About Jim Carrey

Arguably the top screen comedian of the 1990s, Canadian-born entertainer Jim Carrey has combined equal parts of his idol Jerry Lewis, his spiritual ancestor Harry Ritz, and the loose-limbed Ray Bolger into a gleefully uninhibited screen image that is uniquely his own.

He was born James Eugene Carrey on January 17, 1962 in Newmarket, the son of Kathleen (née Oram), a homemaker, and Percy Carrey, a musician and accountant. He has three older siblings, John, Patricia, and Rita. The family was Catholic and of part French Canadian ancestry (as the original surname was Carré). After the family moved to Scarborough, Ontario when Carrey was 14, he attended Blessed Trinity Catholic School in North York for two years, before enrolling at Agincourt Collegiate Institute, Scarborough's oldest high school for another year, and then briefly attended Northview Heights Secondary School for the remainder of his high school career (3 years in grade 10).

Carrey's life wasn't always a barrel of laughs, he was born into a peripatetic household that regularly ran the gamut from middle-class comfort to abject poverty. Not surprisingly, Carrey became a classic overachiever, excelling in academics while keeping his classmates in stitches with his wild improvisations and elastic facial expressions. His comedy club debut at age 16 was a dismal failure, but Carrey had already resolved not to be beaten down by life's disappointments (as his father, a frustrated musician, had been). By age 22, he was making a good living as a standup comic, and was starring on the short-lived sitcom The Duck Factory -- a series which curiously did little to take advantage of its star's uncanny physical dexterity.

Throughout the 1980s, Carrey appeared in supporting roles in such films as Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Earth Girls are Easy (1990). Full television stardom came Carrey's way in 1990 as the resident "white guy" on Keenan Ivory Wayans' Fox TV comedy In Living Color. The most popular of the comedian's many characterizations on the program was the grotesquely disfigured Fire Marshal Bill, whose dubious safety tips brought down the wrath of real-life fire prevention groups -- and also earned Carrey the ultimate accolade of being imitated by other comics. 1994 proved to be "The Year of Carrey," with the release of three top-grossing comedy films to his credit: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber. By the end of the year, Carrey was commanding seven to ten million dollars per picture. In 1995, the actor/comedian took over for Robin Williams as The Riddler in the blockbuster film Batman Forever, and, in 1996, he tried his hand at a darker and more menacing role as a maniacal cable repairman in The Cable Guy. The film, and Carrey's at-times frightening performance, received decidedly mixed reviews from critics and audiences. Despite the generally negative response to the film, Carrey still retained an interest in branching out into more dramatic roles.

Following a return to all-out comedy in Liar, Liar (1997) as a chronically dishonest attorney, Carrey explored new territory with his lead role in the highly acclaimed The Truman Show (1998), Peter Weir's eerie comedy drama about the perils of all-consuming media manipulation. Critical respect in hand, Carrey returned to comedy of a different sort with the lead role in Milos Forman's Man on the Moon (1999), a much-anticipated biopic of the legendary comic Andy Kaufman. Although the film boasted a powerhouse performance from Carrey, it earned less than stellar reviews and did poor business at the box office. Such was the strength of the actor's portrayal, however, that his exclusion from the Best Actor nominations at that year's Academy Awards was a source of protest for a number of industry members. Carrey returned to straight comedy the following year with the Farrelly brothers' Me, Myself & Irene, in which he starred as a cop with a split personality, both of whom are in love with the same woman (Renée Zellweger). Though that film fared the least successful of the Farrellys' efforts to that point, Carrey's anarchic persona was given seemingly free range and the result was his most unhinged role since The Mask. That same year, he assumed the lead role in Ron Howard's Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, raking in the money at the box-office and receiving a Golden Globe nomination despite widespread critical-contempt for the film. Continuing to seek acceptance as a skilled dramatist, Carrey next appeared in the 2001 box-office bomb The Majestic.

Undeterred by the failure of The Majestic, Carrey returned again to both comedy and box-office success with 2003's Bruce Almighty. After handily proving that his power as a big-screen star was very much intact, Carrey wasted no time switching gears once again as he embarked on his most ambitious project to date, the 2004 mind-bending romantic-dramedy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Scripted by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry, the film garnered rave reviews and featured what was arguably Carrey's most subtly complex and subdued performance to date.

Later in 2004, Carrey could also be seen alongside Meryl Streep and Jude Law in the much-anticipated adaptation of the children's book -Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. 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, Carrey plays a man who becomes obsessed with the number 23, after finding a book about a man with the same obsession.

PERSONAL LIFE

Carrey has been married twice, first to former actress and Comedy Store waitress Melissa Womer on March 28, 1987; the two were officially divorced in late 1995. Their only child, a daughter named Jane Erin Carrey, was born on September 6, 1987 in Los Angeles County. After his separation from Womer in 1994, Carrey began dating his Dumb and 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 & Irene, but their relationship ended with a broken engagement in December 2000.

In December 2005, Carrey began dating actress/model Jenny McCarthy. They did not make their relationship public until June 2006. McCarthy announced on The Ellen DeGeneres Show on April 2, 2008 that the two were then living together, but had no plans to marry; as they do not need a "piece of paper." In April 2010, Carrey confirmed that he and McCarthy had ended their near five-year relationship.

Source: Wikipedia

  • Religion: Catholicism
  • Ethnicity: Canadian American
  • Residence: Burlington
  • Residence: Newmarket
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Jim Carrey's Timeline

1962
January 17, 1962
Newmarket, York Regional Municipality, Ontario, Canada
1976
September 2, 1976
- June 24, 1980
Age 14
Aldershot High School, Burlington, Ontario, Canada
1987
September 6, 1987
Vancouver, Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada