Who Am I? #2
Let me start by telling a story: On January 17, 1962, I was born Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. Ever since I learned how to wobble around and poop in my pants, I’ve made people happy. You can also say I was a bit of a class clown back then. At 15 years old, before I even learned how to drive, I performed stand up at a Toronto comedy club. Talk about an accelerated education on comedy! But when I graduated from high school, my career took an unexpected turn:
I became a janitor – yes, a janitor.
After a few years of cleaning up other people’s trash, I decided it was time for a change. In 1979, I performed as an opening act for several popular comedians at the time.
By 1983, I moved to Hollywood where I starred in my first made-for-TV movie. My career was progressing but I still longed to make people laugh. It was what I was born for. That’s when I decided to make out a check in the amount of $10 million to myself a major comedic movie role. I dated the check 10 years from the time it was written. I kept that check in my wallet as a way to visualize who I wanted to become.
After a string of successful television and movie roles, my biggest break came in 1994 when I started in a hit comedy about an animal detective. From that point, I was involved in productions of several cult classics of that time. In fact, I actually received $10 million dollars for one of these movies, that same amount that I had envisioned for myself on a check I had written ten years before! I also got married and became a father.
I shocked the nation in 1998 and 1999, winning two Golden Globes for Best Actor in, an unexpected feat for a comedian like myself. I continued to live out my dream of making people laugh starring in film production involving everything from beloved children’s characters to penguins and superheroes.
By 2015, the laughter stopped when my girlfriend at the time had passed away from a drug overdose. To make things worse, her mother and ex-husband were so upset, they wanted to sue me for wrongful death. Soon after, charges were later dropped.
As catharsis to overcome some of the tragedy in my life, I picked up a new hobby a couple years later. I started painting, which I discovered I loved as much as comedy. I released a documentary in 2017 about my work, and talked about what it meant for me as a person and as a artist.
In 2018, I came back to the small screen to star in a production on Showtime. Prior to that, I was also an executive producer on the Showtime dramedy, I’m Dying Up Here. You can say that I am returning to my comedic roots!
Who am I?
