All Over the Map

Born to the 1958 Cape Breton coal town road of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and primarily raised in Halifax, RON JAMES moved to Toronto after graduating from Acadia University with a BA in History. Once in Toronto, he joined the premiere breeding ground of North American comedy, the Second City. In 1990 he and his young family moved to Los Angeles at the behest of the Imagine Entertainment production company when he was cast in the syndicated series My Talk Show. After that series was cancelled he chased the sitcom grail for three years but mostly was unemployed and slowly going broke. Upon his return to Toronto in 1993 he chronicled that LA sojourn in his critically acclaimed one-man show Up and Down in Shaky Town: One Man’s Journey Through the California Dream. This experience moved him into the world of stand-up comedy. After five years spent honing his act in the Toronto club scene, Ron was invited to launch the premiere season of CTV’s Comedy Network, when Shaky Town was given its own ninety-minute special. The next several years saw him voted Comedian of the Year at the Canadian Comedy Awards, appear half a dozen times at Just for Laughs, the Halifax and Winnipeg Comedy Festivals, Edinburgh Festival, and star in the first television series of his own creation, Blackfly, which ran for two seasons on Global. Blackfly ended and Ron hit the road. . . hard! When Montreal’s internationally renowned comedy festival Just for Laughs commissioned a one-man show, The Road Between My Ears was born and in 2003 became the first of a record-breaking nine one-hour specials on CBC that fast became a New Year’s Eve viewing tradition, annually seen by 1.4 million Canadians. For five year Ron also had a CBC series, The Ron James Show.Ron is the proud recipient of an honorary Doctorate in the Humanities from Acadia University. He splits his time between Toronto and Nova Scotia.