February 17th, 2007 - Happy Birthday Jim Carrey!

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James Eugene "Jim" Carrey (born January 17, 1962 in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada) is a Golden Globe-winning Canadian/American film actor.

He's 45!

He is best known for his manic, slapstick performances in comedy films such as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Dumb & Dumber, 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.

James Eugene Carrey was born on January 17, 1962 in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada to Percy and Kathleen Carrey. He has three older siblings, John, Patricia and Rita. His family is Catholic and has distant French Canadian roots (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. 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.

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 turned his attention towards filmed entertainment. 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 1985s 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 amazingly caught America's (and Hollywood's) attention.

After the family moved to Scarborough when Carrey was 13 the family lived at an historical house. Carrey attended Blessed Trinity Catholic School in North York for two years, then began at Agincourt Collegiate Institute, Scarborough's oldest high school.

A Bit of Trivia:

Carrey really does have a chipped tooth; for his role in Dumb & Dumber, he simply removed the cap.

Other February 17th Birthdays:

Yvonne Zima-Actress/ER -18
Kid Rock-Singer -36
Paris Hilton-I Have No Idea [heh] -26
Andy Kaufman-Comic Actor -58
Maury Povich-TV Personality -68
Shari Lewis-TV Personality -73
James Earl Jones-Actor -76
Vidal Sassoon-Hair Stylist -79
Betty White-Actress -85