Jim Carrey: Factory cleaning shifts at 15, then years in comedy clubs
When his father lost his job, the teenage Jim Carrey worked cleaning shifts in a factory with his family. Years of stand up followed before film work came.
Family on shifts
Jim Carrey was born in 1962 in Ontario, Canada. When his father, a musician turned accountant, lost his job, the whole family took cleaning and security work at a factory near Toronto, and for a time they lived in a camper van.
Clubs and silence
He left school at 16 and tried stand up in Toronto comedy clubs, where his early sets went badly. He kept at it, moved to Los Angeles and spent years on the club circuit and in small TV and film roles.
The cheque
In those years he wrote himself a cheque for $10 million 'for acting services rendered', dated Thanksgiving 1995, and kept it in his wallet. He has told the story many times, including on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1997.
What came of it
Three films released in 1994, starting with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, made him a star. He later put the old cheque in his father's coffin.
The goal on paper only mattered because of the years of club work behind it. Write the aim down if it helps, then do the shifts.
The myth: The cheque is often told as if writing it made success happen. Carrey himself has said that picturing a goal is useless unless you also do the work.
Where the facts come from: Interview, The Oprah Winfrey Show, 1997; Biography, Encyclopaedia Britannica.
