Jeff Dunham

Jeffrey Douglas Dunham was born on April 18, 1962, in Dallas, Texas, and was adopted at three months old by Howard Dunham, a real estate appraiser, and his homemaker wife Joyce. The couple raised Dunham as an only child in an affluent Dallas neighborhood in a devoutly Presbyterian household. Dunham is an American ventriloquist, stand-up comedian, and actor.

Dunham's introduction to ventriloquism came in 1970, at age eight, when his parents gave him a Mortimer Snerd dummy and an accompanying instructional album for Christmas. He supplemented this with a library book on the subject, which he has acknowledged keeping well past its due date. By the fourth grade, he had set his sights on becoming not just a professional ventriloquist but the best one ever, spending hours practicing in front of a mirror and studying the work of Edgar Bergen, as well as Jimmy Nelson's instructional record. Beginning in the sixth grade, Dunham attended the annual Vent Haven ConVENTion in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, where he eventually met Nelson in person. He has missed only one ConVENTion since then, in 1977, and the organizers ultimately declared him a retired champion, ruling him ineligible for further competition because other attendees were reluctant to compete against him. The Vent Haven Museum dedicates a section to Dunham alongside Señor Wences and Edgar Bergen.

As a teenager, Dunham performed at school events, church functions, and during his time working at Six Flags. By middle school he was entertaining at banquets attended by local figures such as Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach. His television debut came in 1976, when Dallas reporters including Bill O'Reilly covered him in a local news segment. He also appeared in commercials for Datsun dealerships in Dallas and Tyler while still in high school, and was voted Most Likely to Succeed by his classmates. Upon graduating in 1980, Dunham set a ten-year goal of appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, which he ultimately achieved with less than two months to spare.

Dunham enrolled at Baylor University that same year, pursuing a degree in communications while continuing to perform. He flew across the country on weekends, doing as many as 100 private shows annually for corporate clients that included General Electric, whose CEO Jack Welch he incorporated into his routine. By his junior year, spanning 1983 to 1984, he was earning $70,000 annually and had secured opening spots for Bob Hope and George Burns.

In 1985, Dunham was asked to join the Broadway production Sugar Babies, replacing an outgoing variety act alongside Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller. The engagement marked his Broadway debut and exposed him to the dynamics of the entertainment industry, including a notable encounter with Rooney, who summoned Dunham to his dressing room to clarify that Dunham's role was to provide Rooney time to change costumes. Dunham also performed during this period at the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island, where he learned the importance of tailoring his material to regional audiences, observing that jokes involving José Jalapeño on a Stick that resonated in Texas did not land as well with Long Island crowds. He graduated from Baylor University in 1986 and continued developing his act in comedy clubs across the Southwest, introducing characters including Peanut and José Jalapeño.

By the end of 1988, Dunham relocated to Los Angeles, where he faced resistance from a comedy world that was largely unreceptive to ventriloquists. His manager, Judi Brown-Marmel, avoided using the word ventriloquist when securing bookings, instead presenting Dunham as a comedy duo. A friendship with Mike Lacey, owner of The Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, provided Dunham with a consistent performance slot where he was able to refine his material.

Dunham has appeared on numerous television programs, among them Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show, Comedy Central Presents, and Sonny with a Chance. He starred in The Jeff Dunham Show, a series that ran in 2009, and has produced seven specials for Comedy Central as well as two Netflix specials. His Comedy Central special A Very Special Christmas Special became the most-watched telecast in the network's history, with its DVD selling over 400,000 copies within its first two weeks. His 2007 introduction of the character Achmed the Dead Terrorist in the Spark of Insanity special was ranked at the time as the ninth most-watched video on YouTube. The Spark of Insanity tour earned Dunham a Guinness World Record for most tickets sold for a stand-up comedy tour. Forbes ranked him the third highest-paid comedian in the United States, behind Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock, and reported that he earned approximately $30 million between June 2008 and June 2009. Dunham holds a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and has been credited with reviving ventriloquism and doing more to advance the art form than anyone since Edgar Bergen.