Ron James was born in the coal mining town of Glace Bay, Cape Breton and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1979 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Acadia University which overlooks the verdant fields of Glooscap’s Blomidon. (Glooscap being the revered Manitou of the Micmac Indians, whose birch bark basket weaving prowess was renowned among tribes of the Eastern woodlands long before Columbus was in pantaloons. Which really has nothing to do with this bio, it’s just some free esoteric info which could someday win you monetary rewards on Jeopardy). It was at this seat of learning, under the encouragement of anarchists, miscreants and future leaders of the free world, he caught the calling for ‘the funny’ and upon graduation, bore westward in pursuit of ‘the Muse’.

Settling in Toronto, he studied improvisational comedy at THE SECOND CITY, was hired by their National Touring Company and eventually promoted to Main Stage, where, for the privilege of following his dream, was shackled to feudal servitude and paid a Third World wage. The beer was half price though. During these days he appeared in dozens of national commercials, selling everything from hamburgers to Home Hardware, as well as guest starring in forgettable Canadian sitcoms and corporate training films. Mind you, the training film where he played the hunchback in the ergonomically challenged work place is a tour de force of method acting!

Actually, he did co-star in an excellent CBS Movie of the Week called ‘SPECIAL PEOPLE’ and also received a GENIE nomination for Best Supporting Actor in the dramatic film, ‘SOMETHING ABOUT LOVE’. Some French guy won. Then, there was a period of ‘missing time’, when gainful employ nosedived faster than a kamikaze pilot with a rabid ferret in his pants. That’ll hurt. In the early nineties he moved his young family to Los Angeles at the invitation of Ron Howard’s company, Imagine TV, to join the cast of their late night syndicated series, MY TALK SHOW. It was cancelled when people discovered it sucked. He stayed for three years, appearing on a few sitcoms and several national commercial campaigns, including spokesman for Texas Tourism on CNN. Mostly though, he racked up unholy debt hoping the phone would ring with promise of work, aimlessly wandering the house as if he was in the Witness Protection Program waiting for his ‘new chin’ to arrive. Fed up with waiting for someone else to employ him, he returned to Toronto where he wrote and performed his first one man show about his time in Los Angeles. ‘UP AND DOWN IN SHAKEY TOWN,’ aired on the CTV’s COMEDY NETWORK as a ninety minute special, garnering national critical raves and was voted by the Toronto Star as, One of the Ten Best Television Shows of the Season. This moved him full throttle into stand-up comedy, where he’s been featured on every major television comedy festival in the country that’ll no doubt be showing up in re-runs until the continents collide.

In the late nineties he appeared as a cast regular on the first two seasons of the GEMINI award winning satire, MADE IN CANADA; wrote as part of the GEMINI Award winning team for a season on THIS HOUR HAS 22 MINUTES; and in 2000 was voted COMEDIAN OF THE YEAR at the inaugural, Canadian Comedy Awards. That year saw Ron star in a television series of his own creation called ‘BLACKFLY’ that ran for two seasons on Global TV. Set during the North American fur trade of the 1783 frontier, it was said to be everything from ‘original…a sheer delight’(Globe and Mail) to, ‘playing forever on a reel in the fifth ring of hell’(National Post). What odds eh?

Where he’s happiest, is performing two hours of live stand-up comedy during his cross Canada theatre tours. After seeing such a performance, the folks at Montreal’s international comedy festival, JUST FOR LAUGHS, invited him to write and create a new one man show for their 20th anniversary season. THE ROAD BETWEEN MY EARS premiered at The Centaur Theatre in the summer of 2002. After a year of intensive touring and fine tuning, it was filmed during a two hour performance at Toronto’s Winter Garden Theatre as a one hour CBC special, resulting in the 100 minute product you’re watching.

Ron continues to tour the country extensively, embracing the places in the Great Out There. When not on the road, he lives in Toronto with his wife and two daughters, who keep him wrapped in a blanket on the front porch and comfortably medicated.

Source ronjames.ca