John Pinette

John Paul Pinette (March 23, 1964 – April 5, 2014) was an American stand-up comedian, actor, and Broadway performer born in Boston, Massachusetts. The son of Robert Pinette Sr. and Louise Pitre, he grew up with Acadian roots on his mother's side, her parents having come from New Brunswick, Canada. Pinette completed his secondary education at Malden Catholic High School in 1982 and went on to earn a degree in accounting from the University of Massachusetts Lowell in 1986. After six months working in the field, he left accounting to pursue comedy, later telling the Montreal Gazette in 2006 that he lacked the heart for the profession and that his instinct on the job had been to distract auditors with jokes.

Pinette began working the comedy club circuit in the 1980s. A significant early opportunity came in 1991 when he was hired to open for Frank Sinatra, initially for three sets; Sinatra invited him to dinner and retained him for additional performances, including a show at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, a relationship that continued on and off for roughly a year and a half. That same year he was cast as the referee on the reality series The Grudge Match and secured recurring roles on the final season of Parker Lewis Can't Lose and the Matt LeBlanc sitcom Vinnie & Bobby, both of which aired in 1992. In 1998, he appeared as the carjacking victim in the final episode of Seinfeld. He was also a recurring guest on The Tonight Show and The View.

The American Comedy Awards named Pinette Stand-Up Comedian of the Year in 1999, and the following year he received a Gemini Award nomination for a televised performance at Montreal's Just for Laughs Comedy Festival. He held the record for the highest-selling one-person show series in Just for Laughs history for sixteen years, a mark that was not surpassed until Sugar Sammy broke it in 2016. His film credits include Dear God, Junior, Duets, Simon Sez, and The Last Godfather, as well as the role of Nathaniel Bumpo in the 2004 Artisan Entertainment film The Punisher, starring Thomas Jane and John Travolta.

In 2004, Pinette joined the touring cast of the musical Hairspray in the role of Edna Turnblad, telling The Globe and Mail that the irony of the part was having to work on a treadmill six days a week in order to play a fat old woman. He subsequently moved to the Broadway production in 2005, remaining in the role through May 28, 2006. His Broadway run with Hairspray, which the database records as spanning 2002 to 2003 for his initial Broadway association, represented a significant chapter in his performing career. In his 2006 concert I'm Starvin', Pinette noted that Hairspray was the first musical theater production he had appeared in since high school. In preparation for the physical demands of the role, he lost 100 pounds and wore a fat suit onstage.

Beyond stand-up and theater, Pinette hosted All You Can Eat, a television series examining American cuisine with a comedic lens that debuted on the H2 network in late June 2013. His stand-up material was featured in Comedy Central's 2004 animated series Shorties Watchin' Shorties, and in 2010 he recorded the Comedy Central special John Pinette: Still Hungry at the Vic Theatre in Chicago, which premiered on the network on July 29, 2011. He performed at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival in 2008 and served as a host of the E4 Laughs at Edinburgh podcasts that same year. In 2007 he appeared at the 42nd annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, and in 2012 he was among the performers in Ron White's Comedy Salute to the Troops on CMT.

Pinette's stand-up drew heavily on his experiences with his weight, incorporating observations about food and regional cuisines alongside accounts of the physical challenges his size presented in daily life. He cited Jackie Gleason, Jonathan Winters, Buddy Hackett, and Bill Cosby as the comedians who most shaped his approach to comedy. His impressions included Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando's role in The Godfather, Gollum from The Lord of the Rings, Hervé Villechaize, The Chipmunks, and an Ewok, and he occasionally incorporated songs such as "Over the Rainbow," "Will You Be There," and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" into his routines.

Pinette's weight fluctuated considerably throughout his life, reaching a high of 452 pounds in the late 1990s before he underwent gastric-bypass surgery in 1999. In August 2013, he cancelled a nationwide Canadian tour and entered a rehabilitation facility after developing a dependency on prescription pain medication. He informed fans the following January that he was physically spent following weight loss and several surgical procedures and would take three and a half months off to recover, before resuming performances on the American comedy circuit in March 2014.

Pinette died on April 5, 2014, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he had been attending a family wedding, at the age of 50. His cause of death was pulmonary embolism, as determined by his personal physician. Funeral services were held near his home in Springfield, Pennsylvania. Following his death, Just for Laughs disclosed that the organization had been working with Pinette's team on plans for another cross-Canada tour.