Early Life
Jillette was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts. His mother, Valda R. Jillette (née Parks) (November 8, 1909 – January 1, 2000), was a secretary, and his father, Samuel Herbert Jillette (March 14, 1912 – February 14, 1999), worked at Greenfield's Franklin County Jail. Jillette became disenchanted with traditional illusionist acts that presented the craft as authentic magic, such as The Amazing Kreskin on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. At age eighteen, he saw a show by illusionist James Randi, and became enamored of his approach to magic that openly acknowledged deception as entertainment rather than a mysterious supernatural power. Jillette regularly acknowledges Randi as the one person on the planet he loves the most besides members of his family.
Jillette worked with high school classmate Michael Moschen in developing and performing a juggling act during the years immediately following their 1973 graduation. In 1974, Jillette graduated from Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College. That same year, he was introduced to Teller by Weir Chrisemer, a mutual friend. The three then formed a three-person act called Asparagus Valley Cultural Society which played in Amherst, Massachusetts and San Francisco. In 1981, he and Teller teamed up as Penn & Teller, and went on to do a successful on- and Off Broadway show called "Penn & Teller" that toured nationally.
Read more about this topic: Penn Jillette
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Franklin said once in one of his inspired flights of malignity—
Early to bed and early to rise
Make a man healthy and wealth and wise.
As if it were any object to a boy to be healthy and wealthy and wise on such terms.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“In the life of the human spirit, words are action, much more so than many of us may realize who live in countries where freedom of expression is taken for granted. The leaders of totalitarian nations understand this very well. The proof is that words are precisely the action for which dissidents in those countries are being persecuted.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)