Jim Carrey was born on January 17, 1962 in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. He was
raise by his father, an aspiring jazz saxophonist who became an accountant. Jim's
family included his mother, brother John, sisters Rita, and Patrica. Jim discovered
when he was real young that he was had a talent for making faces of famous people.
He did John Wayne, Don Adams, and Frank Gorshin. When Jim was in school, which he attended
at Aldershot in Burlington, Jim was a class clown doing impressions for his classmates.
Most teachers would be unkind about Jim's act, but he developed a good student to
teacher relationship with his teacher Mrs. Dervaitis. She allowed him to put a comedy act
together at the end of the day as long as he behaved and did his work.
Though his father Percy worked as an accountant at Aldershot Industrial Installions,
he was fired due to changes in the company he worked for. He was replaced with a younger
man. It wasn't going to be easy finding work for Percy. This event made the family homeless
and Percy jobless. Jim's father then got a job working at Titan Wheels, a tire company, as
a security guard. He decided to make his job easier and would have the entire family work at
the factory. In the deal they would be able to live in a stone house that was next to the
factory, but they all had to work there. Jim, his brother John, and sister Rita worked at Titan
on the night shift. Rita cleaned the second floor of the offices, while Jim and John cleaned on the
first floor of the factory using machines. Their other jobs were waxing, polishing, dusting, cleaning
toilets. There wasn't anything too dirty to do. The job was very hard on Jim emotionally . The family
thought they were on call 24 hours a day, everyday because the factory was next door.
Percy and Kay allowed Jim, Rita, and John days off from work once in awhile, but Percy and Kay
never took time off from working at Titan Wheels.
The situatation encouraged Jim to start following his dreams to do comedy. He dropped out of the
school he attended, Agincourt Collegiate Institute, in his 10th grade year. Working after school at Titan made
him too tired. He told Percy about the decision he made.
His family, altogether, decided to no longer work at Titan, leaving them all homeless. Then, after losing
their current residence, Jim's family lived in a beat-up yellow Volkswagen. They took it to campgrounds. In the
summer they visited Jim's older sister and set up a tent on her front lawn to live in. Jim called this bad time,
"The Grapes Of Wrath".
Jim had been working on a comedy act with his father Percy when he was just 14 years old. Percy knew of a
comedy club called Yuk-Yuk's, which at that time was in a basement of a church. Jim went on stage and was completely
humiliated; he was booed off the stage. Jim did not appear at Yuk-Yuk's again for 2 years. Jim then returned to
Yuk-Yuk's when he was 16 years old finally winning the audience over with his impressions, Jim soon became a regular
at Yuk-Yuk's, as other comics were still trying to get on their way up. Jim did many singing impressions like, Elivs
and Kermit The Frog. Leatrice Spevack booked Jim at other places like college campuses, police associations and banquet
halls.