Comedian and actor Jim Carrey was born in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada, on January 17, 1962. Carrey relocated to Los Angeles to pursue comedy, eventually landing a spot on the sketch comedy show In Living Color. He went on to huge box office success in comedies, including Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and The Mask, and delivered acclaimed dramatic performances in The Truman Show, Man on the Moon, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His later films include Kick Ass 2 and Dumb and Dumber To.

Early Life and Career

Actor and comedian James Eugene Carrey was born on January 17, 1962, in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. Carrey got his start with a spot doing stand-up at a Toronto comedy club when he was just 15 years old. By 1979 he had left the factory job as a janitor he had taken in 1978 to help support his family and was making his living as the opening act for successful comics Buddy Hackett and Rodney Dangerfield.

In 1983 Carrey headed west to Hollywood where he starred in a made-for-television movie called Introducing...Janet. Carrey's appearances on TV in programs such as The Duck Factory and Jim Carrey's Unnatural Act (1991) led to a regular role on the hit comedy In Living Color.

Movies

'Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,' 'The Mask'

Carrey's big screen debut came with 1984's Finders Keepers, but he didn't find success until he played the title role in the 1994 comedy Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. From there, Carrey's expressive face, expert mimicry skills and physical brand of comedy kept the hits coming. He followed with The Mask (1994), Dumb and Dumber (1994), Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995), Batman Forever (1995), The Cable Guy (1996) and Liar Liar (1997).

'The Truman Show,' 'Man on the Moon'

Carrey took a successful dramatic turn as Truman Burbank in Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998), for which he won a Golden Globe award for Best Actor. He then teamed up with legendary director Milos Forman for the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon (1999), co-starring Courtney Love. For his dead-on portrayal of Kaufman, Carrey took home his second Golden Globe. Despite his Golden Globe success, he didn't earn a nomination for an Academy Award. Still, he became one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, with an reported asking price of $20 million.

'Me, Myself and Irene,' 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas,' 'Eternal Sunshine'

In the summer of 2000, Carrey portrayed a character with two dueling personalities (both in love with the same woman) in the comedy Me, Myself and Irene. That fall, wearing pounds of green fur and makeup, he starred as the titular curmudgeon in the long-awaited big budget film version of Dr. Seuss' holiday classic, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, directed by Ron Howard. In 2003 the actor starred as a man endowed with God-like powers in Bruce Almighty, with Jennifer Aniston. The following year, Carrey starred opposite Kate Winslet in Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

'Fun with Dick and Jane,' 'Dumb and Dumber To'

Carrey continued to take on a variety of comedic roles, starring in such films as Fun with Dick and Jane (2005), A Christmas Carol (2009) and Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011). He also enjoyed supporting parts in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013), with Steve Carell, and Kick Ass 2 (2013). In 2014 Carrey reteamed with Jeff Daniels for Dumb and Dumber To.

'Kidding'

In 2018 Carrey made his way onto the small screen in the Showtime comedy series Kidding, a story about a celebrated children's TV host named Jeff (aka Mr. Pickles) whose family life begins to unravel much faster than he's able to handle. Prior to Kidding, Carrey was working behind the scenes on Showtime as an executive producer on the dramedy I'm Dying Up Here.

Following a three-plus-year break from the big screen, Carrey returned in early 2020 to play the evil Dr. Robotnik in an adaptation of the popular 1990s video game Sonic the Hedgehog.

Paintings

While his career as a big screen star waned, Carrey began pursuing his painting hobby in earnest. In 2017 he released a six-minute documentary, I Needed Color, in which he explained his passion for art and showed off his completed works.

In 2018 Carrey came under fire for tweeting an unflattering portrait of someone who resembled White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, with the caption, "This is the portrait of a so-called Christian whose only purpose in life is to lie for the wicked. Monstrous!" A spokesperson confirmed that the piece was rendered by Carrey but did not confirm whether or not Sanders was the subject.

Personal Life

Carrey has a daughter, Jane, from his marriage to Melissa Womer (from 1987 to 1995). He was married briefly to Dumb & Dumber co-star Lauren Holly before entering a yearlong romance with his Me, Myself and Irene leading lady Renee Zellweger. He was later involved with actress/model Jenny McCarthy.

In 2015, Carrey's girlfriend, Cathriona White, died from a drug overdose in what was ruled a suicide. Both White's estranged husband and mother sued Carrey for wrongful death, though the charges were eventually dismissed.

Relationships

In 1983, Jim Carrey dated singer Linda Ronstadt for eight months. Carrey has been married twice. His first marriage was to former actress and Comedy Store waitress Melissa Womer, whom he married on 28 March 1987. Their daughter, Jane Erin Carrey, was born 6 September 1987. Jane was a 2012 contestant on American Idol. Carrey and Womer divorced in 1995.

On 23 September 1996, Carrey married his Dumb and Dumber co-star Lauren Holly; the marriage lasted less than a year. From 1999 to 2000, Carrey was engaged to his Me, Myself and Irene co-star Renée Zellweger. January Jones was in a relationship with Carrey in 2002. Carrey met model and actress Jenny McCarthy in 2005 and made their relationship public in June 2006. In April 2010, the two ended their relationship. In October 2010, McCarthy said they remained good friends.

Carrey met Cathriona White in 2012, a makeup artist from County Tipperary, Ireland. They dated between 2012 and 2015. On 28 September 2015, White was found dead from a prescription drug overdose; the death was ruled a suicide by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner. Carrey was a pallbearer at her funeral in Cappawhite, County Tipperary, Ireland.

Carrey attended the Golden Globes 2019 Party with his girlfriend Ginger Gonzaga in January 2019. The couple split after less than a year of dating.

Wrongful death lawsuits

Carrey's girlfriend Cathriona White married Mark Burton in 2013, in Las Vegas. She had been dating Carrey on and off since 2012, and was still married but dating Carrey when she died in 2015. On 19 September 2016, Burton filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Carrey, claiming that he had used his "immense wealth and celebrity status" to illegally obtain and distribute prescription drugs involved in White's death. Carrey released a statement the following day:

What a terrible shame. It would be easy for me to get in a back room with this man's lawyer and make this go away, but there are some moments in life when you have to stand up and defend your honor against the evil in this world. I will not tolerate this heartless attempt to exploit me or the woman I loved. Cat's troubles were born long before I met her and sadly her tragic end was beyond anyone's control. I really hope that some day soon people will stop trying to profit from this and let her rest in peace.

In October 2016, White's mother, Brigid Sweetman, also filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Carrey. In this suit, Sweetman's attorney states that Carrey underwent a test for sexually transmitted infections, tested positive for hepatitis A, HSV (Herpes) I and II, and chlamydia, and hid the results from White and had unprotected sex with her. Sweetman later issued a statement: "These documents show that Jim Carrey has lied to the media, the public and the court. Carrey has now been shown for what he is—a dishonest Hollywood celebrity who thinks he can say anything and fool people just because he is famous."

Both lawsuits were dismissed on January 25, 2018, and attorneys for both sides confirmed there would be no further legal proceedings.

Vaccine skepticism

In 2009, Carrey wrote an article questioning the merits of vaccination for The Huffington Post. With former partner Jenny McCarthy, Carrey led a "Green Our Vaccines" march in Washington, D.C., to advocate for the removal of "toxic substances" from children's vaccines, out of a belief that children had received "too many vaccines, too soon, many of which are toxic". The rally was criticized by David Gorski, an American surgical oncologist on Science-Based Medicine blog, for being anti-vaccine and not "pro-safe vaccine", and by Steven Parker on the WebMD website for being "irresponsible".

On July 1, 2015, after the signing of a new vaccination law, Carrey called California Governor Jerry Brown a "corporate fascist" who was "poisoning" children by enacting the vaccination requirements. The law disallowed religious and philosophical reasons for exemption from vaccination. Carrey was criticized for being "ignorant when it comes to vaccines" by Arthur Caplan, head of the Division of Medical Ethics, at New York University, and by Jeffrey Kluger, senior writer at Time, who described his anti-vaccination statements as "angry, dense and immune to reason".

Political and spiritual views

Carrey is an outspoken advocate of the "law of attraction". In an interview with Oprah Winfrey on February 17, 1997, he revealed that as a struggling actor he would use visualization techniques to get work. He also stated that he visualized a $10 million check given to him for "acting services rendered", placed the check in his pocket, and seven years later received a $10 million check for his role in Dumb and Dumber.

Carrey practices Transcendental Meditation.

Carrey has defended socialism and has urged the Democratic Party to embrace the movement, saying "We have to say yes to socialism, to the word and everything. We have to stop apologizing".

Carrey has shared his own political cartoon drawings since August 2017, including controversial renderings of then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and then-President Donald Trump. He sparked an international event on March 31, 2019, posting a drawing criticizing fascism by depicting Benito Mussolini's infamous death with Clara Petacci; this irked Mussolini's granddaughter Alessandra, who chided him on Twitter, calling him "a bastard" and his artworks "dirty paper". His drawing repertoire culminated in an exhibition titled IndigNation, which opened on October 23, 2018 at the Maccarone Gallery in Los Angeles and featured 108 pen-and-ink drawings from Carrey's Twitter feed from 2016 to 2018.

Artwork and NFTs

In 2017, Carrey revealed that he had been painting for the past six years. In 2011, he exhibited the painting Nothing to See Here in an art show in Palm Springs at the Heather James Fine Art Gallery. In 2017, Carrey released a six-minute documentary entitled, I Needed Color, which showed him working in his studio. In April 2022, Carrey announced that he had minted his first art NFT via the NFT platform SuperRare. The NFT is based on a painting entitled Sunshower, and is accompanied by original voiceover.