Jim Carrey

He began his standup comedy in the seventh grade when his teacher allowed him to have fifteen minutes at the end of each day to entertain his classmates.

At the age of fourteen, his father got laid off. This forced the whole Carrey family to move to Scarborough. Both parents and all four children took jobs at the Titan Wheels factory to make ends meet.

As a result, Jim's grades fell from straight A's to F's. Eventually Carrey dropped out of highschool and started performing at comedy clubs in Toronto.

In 1979, Carrey moved to Los Angeles where he landed a job at the Comedy Store. His big break came after Rodney Dangerfield signed him on for a season and an appearance on David Letterman's Late Night show.

Shortly afterwards, NBC offered him a role in the series The Duck Factory. A short lived series that was cancelled after thirteen episodes. Realizing that he did not want to spend the rest of his life as a standup comic, Carrey decided to take his acting to a more professional level.

His first major film role was Earth Girls Are Easy. Carrey later moved on to In Living Color, playing one of the show's two white cast members where he gained national exposure that tossed him to the role of Ace Ventura.

In 1995, Carrey starred in the box office smash Batman Forever as the Riddler. Other movies he starred in include Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Dumb and Dumber, The Cable Guy, The Truman Show, and Liar Liar -- for which he received a Golden Globe Best Actor nomination.

In 1999, Carrey starred in Man on the Moon, a movie depicting the late Andy Kaufman, a role that both Nicolas Cage and Kevin Spacey were also seeking. Carrey stayed busy in the following years, with roles in the comedy Me, Myself, and Irene, How The Grinch Stole Christmas and The Majestic.