Myers was born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, the son of British-born parents Eric Myers (1922–1991), an insurance man and World War II veteran of the Royal Engineers, and his wife Alice E. Hind (born 1926), an office supervisor and veteran of the Royal Air Force.[1] Both of his parents are from Liverpool, England. He has two older brothers, Peter Myers and Paul Myers, an indie rock singer-songwriter, broadcaster and author. Myers is of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry,[2] and was raised Protestant.[3]
Myers began school at Bishopbriggs Academy but changed to the Stephen Leacock Collegiate Institute in Scarborough, Ontario. He began performing in commercials at age eight, and at ten he made a commercial for British Columbia Hydro Electric, with Gilda Radner playing his mother. In high school he would become the Wayne’s World character later known as Wayne Campbell. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Second City Theatre. However, he left to tour Britain with comedian Neil Mullarkey.
[edit]Career
[edit]Early career
One of Myers's first acting jobs was in a TV commercial when he was ten years old.[1] Gilda Radner played his mother. A few months later, according to Myers, his brother was teasing him about his "girlfriend (Radner) being on some stupid show on Saturday". Myers swore that, one day, he too would be on that show, the then-fledgling Saturday Night Live.
Myers graduated from high school in 1982 and was immediately accepted into the Second City Canadian Touring Company, after which he moved to the UK where in 1985 he was one of the founding members of The Comedy Store Players, an improvisational group based at The Comedy Store in London. The next year, he starred in the British children's TV program Wide Awake Club, parodying the show's normal exuberance with his own "Sound Asleep Club", in partnership with Neil Mullarkey. He returned to Toronto and Second City in 1986 as a cast member in the Second City's Toronto main stage show. In 1988 he moved from Second City in Toronto to Chicago. In Chicago, he trained and performed at the Improv Olympic. He made numerous appearances, including as Wayne Campbell, on Toronto's Citytv in the early 1980s, on the alternative video show City Limits hosted by Christopher Ward. Myers also appeared as his Wayne Campbell character in the music video for Ward's Canadian hit "Boys and Girls". Later, Ward would appear as one of Austin Powers' band members in Ming Tea in Myers's popular movie series. The Wayne Campbell character was featured extensively in the 1986 summer series It's Only Rock & Roll, produced by Toronto's Insight Production Company for CBC Television. Wayne appeared both in studio and in a series of location sketches directed and edited by Allan Novak. Myers wrote another sketch, Kurt and Dieter co-starring with Second City's Dana Andersen and also directed by Novak, which would later turn into the popular "Sprockets" sketch on Saturday Night Live.
On Sunday 3rd July 2011 Myers returned to The Comedy Store in London to reprise his role 'for one night only' with the improvisational troupe (The Comedy Store Players). The definitive UK comedy website Chortle were full of glowing praise for Myers, claiming "Myers himself excelled, (and was) strikingly adept and quick-witted, when his laughs came they were the biggest squeals of the night...this was no chore for Myers- being funny comes naturally to him- he could’ve spent the whole two hours farting the Canadian national anthem and the audience would’ve still lapped it up."[4]
[edit]Saturday Night Live
Main article: Saturday Night Live
[edit]Film
In 1992, Myers and Dana Carvey adapted Wayne's World into a full-length motion picture based on the SNL sketch. It was among the most successful movies of the year and the following year a sequel was released - Wayne's World 2. That year Myers also starred in So I Married an Axe Murderer which garnered a cult following. The characters in the movie were based on people Myers knew growing up in the Bridlewood section of Scarborough. After Wayne's World 2, Myers took a hiatus from television.
After a four year hiatus from television, Myers returned to acting in 1997 with the film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, then a sequel in 1999, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, finally topping it off with Austin Powers in Goldmember in 2002. Myers played both the title role (Austin Powers) and the villain (Dr. Evil), as well as other characters, in all three Austin Powers films. In 1998, he played one of his rare non-comedic roles in the film 54: Steve Rubell, proprietor of New York City's famous Studio 54, a 1970s discotheque. The film was moderately successful, and Myers's performance was widely praised. Myers later parodied the club as "Studio 69" in Goldmember.
In June 2000, Myers was sued by Universal Pictures for $3.8 million for backing out of a contract to play Dieter, the SNL character, in a feature film. Myers said he refused to honor the $20 million contract because he did not want to cheat moviegoers with an unacceptable script - one that he himself had written. Myers countersued, and a settlement was reached after several months where Myers agreed to make another film with Universal. That film would be The Cat in the Hat, released in November 2003 and starring Myers as the title character. In 2001, Myers played the title character in the DreamWorks animated film Shrek (2001). He reprised this role in Shrek 4-D in 2003, Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third, and the Christmas special Shrek The Halls, both in 2007. In 2009 he did another non-comedic role, as British General Ed Fenech, in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. In 2010 Myers returned for what is apparently the last in the Shrek series, Shrek Forever After. Myers made a cameo appearance in Britney Spears' music video 'Boys' as his film character Austin Powers. Myers is a member of the band Ming Tea along with The Bangles' guitarist and vocalist Susanna Hoffs and musician Matthew Sweet. They performed the songs "BBC" and "Daddy Wasn't There" for the Austin Powers movies.
Myers at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival.
In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. As of 2005, Myers was signed on to play the lead role in the upcoming biopic of The Who drummer Keith Moon.[5] The film would be produced by Roger Daltrey and Nigel Sinclair.
During a CBS interview in 2007, Myers noted that he normally takes three years between films. He spends one year "living his life" and then writes various screenplays, develops characters, practices them in front of live audiences, and then selects one of the screenplays to film. Myers noted that this was the Marx Brothers' procedure for developing their film material.
Myers received the MTV Generation award in June 2007, making him the 2nd Canadian to win the award (Jim Carrey was the first in 2006), for bringing his unique style of comedy to small and big screens alike.
[edit]Personal life
Myers began dating actress and comedy writer Robin Ruzan in the late 1980s after meeting at a hockey game in Chicago, during which Myers caught a puck and used the incident as an icebreaker to strike up a conversation with Ruzan. The couple married in 1993, and Myers later referred to Ruzan as "his muse".[6] The couple filed for divorce in December 2005.[7]
In 2006, cafe owner Kelly Tisdale confirmed reports that she and Myers were dating, telling the National Enquirer, "we're actually surprised you didn't find out about us sooner." Myers and Tisdale wed in New York in the fall of 2010.[8] The couple have a son, Spike, born in September 2011.[9]
Myers is a Dungeons & Dragons player[10] and was one of several celebrities to have participated in the Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day in 2006.[11]
Myers has played for Hollywood United F.C., a celebrity studded U.S. soccer team.[12] He played in the 2010 Soccer Aid for UNICEF UK soccer match, England vs. R.O.W (Rest of the World) and successfully scored his penalty during a sudden death shootout after the game ended 2-2 (June 6, 2010). The Rest of the World team beat England for the first time since the tournament started.
[edit]Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1992 Wayne’s World Wayne Campbell Also Writer
1993 So I Married an Axe Murderer Charlie McKenzie/ Stuart McKenzie
Wayne’s World 2 Wayne Campbell Also Writer
1997 Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery Austin Powers / Dr. Evil Also Writer/ Producer
1998 54 Steve Rubell
The Thin Pink Line Tim Broderick
Pete’s Meteor Pete
1999 Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Austin Powers / Dr. Evil / Fat Bastard Also Writer/ Producer
Mystery, Alaska Donnie Shulzhoffer
2001 Shrek Shrek / The Narrator Voice
2002 Austin Powers in Goldmember Austin Powers / Dr. Evil / Fat Bastard / Goldmember Also Writer/ Producer
2003 Nobody Knows Anything! 'Eye' Witness
The Cat in the Hat The Cat
Shrek 4-D Shrek Voice
View from the Top John Witney
2004 Shrek 2 Shrek Voice
2007 Shrek the Third Shrek Voice
2008 The Love Guru Guru Maurice Pitka Also Writer/Producer
Razzie Award for Worst Actor
2009 Inglorious Basterds Gen. Ed Fenech
2010 Shrek Forever After Shrek Voice
2012 Marvin the Martian Marvin the Martian Voice
in production
Bunnicula Harold Voice
See Me Feel Me: Keith Moon Naked for Your Pleasure Keith Moon in production
[edit]Awards
Myers has won the following awards:
Four American Comedy Awards (Best Film Performance (Male) and Best Writing in 2003 and 2000, for Austin Powers in Goldmember and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, respectively)
The 2000 American Comedy Award for Best Lead Actor for The Spy Who Shagged Me.
An Emmy Award in 1989 for Outstanding Writing in a Variety or Music Program, for Saturday Night Live. He has also been nominated for two other Emmy Awards.
He has won seven MTV Movie Awards.
Nominated for the Worst Actor and Worst Screen Couple Razzie Awards in 2004, for The Cat in the Hat.
For contributions to the motion picture industry, Mike Myers was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7042 Hollywood Boulevard.[13]
He was awarded the Lucille Ball Legacy of Laughter Award at the 2008 TV Land Awards. His award was presented to him by Justin Timberlake, his co-star in The Love Guru.
Two Razzie Awards in 2008, for Worst Actor and along with co-writer Graham Gordy Worst Screenplay for The Love Guru. The film also won Worst Film and secured 4 other nominations.
In 2003 he was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.[14]
[edit]Notable SNL characters
The following characters were created and played by Myers on SNL:
Dieter - host of Sprockets
Linda Richman - hostess of Coffee Talk
Simon - a little boy who does drawings in the bath and complains about having "prune hands" (the theme song for this segment was a slightly modified version of the theme song from "Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings" by Edward MacLachlan)
Wayne Campbell (SNL, the Wayne's World films)
Pat Arnold (SNL, Bill Swerski's Superfans)
Stuart Rankin - proprietor of "All Things Scottish"
Lothar (Of the Hill People)
Middle-Aged Man - An older man who helps young people with their problems
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