A teenager who cleaned a tire factory overnight before school
Jim Carrey
Before Hollywood, Carrey's family lost their home and took custodial work at a Scarborough factory — the teenager worked overnight shifts there before attending school by day, and started standup at Yuk Yuk's not long after.
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James Eugene Carrey was born in 1962 in Newmarket, Ontario, the youngest of four children. The family moved repeatedly through the GTA — Aurora, Willowdale, Burlington, Scarborough — before settling for a stretch in Scarborough.
Hardship in Scarborough
After his father lost his accounting job, the family took custodial jobs at a tire factory on Tapscott Road in Scarborough around 1977–78, living rent-free on the factory grounds in exchange for night-shift cleaning work; a teenage Carrey worked overnight shifts at the factory while attending Agincourt Collegiate Institute by day. The family later lived out of a camper van for roughly eight months — a period of strain Carrey has said shaped him during his teenage years in Scarborough.
Yuk Yuk's and the start of a career
Carrey began performing standup as a young teenager, and by his mid-teens was appearing at Yuk Yuk's comedy club in Toronto — a formative venue for his generation of Canadian comedians. His first paid gig is reported as a 20-minute set at a club on Highway 48 in Scarborough, launching a standup career that moved through Toronto and Canadian clubs before he relocated to Los Angeles.
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