Dane Jeffrey Cook was born on March 18, 1972, in Boston, Massachusetts. The son of an amiable radio DJ, Dane grew up in a bustling Irish Catholic household surrounded by one brother and five sisters. “I had to wear a tampon just to fit in,” he jokes.
Dane Cook works at burger king
But fit in he did, thanks to his burgeoning sense of humor and his willingness to do absolutely anything for a laugh. Even menial jobs, like his teenage tenure at Burger King, eventually became fodder for his comedy. “I didn’t want to call it Burger King… so I used to call it the BK Lounge,” he says. “If the girls were like, ‘Where do you work?’ I was like, ‘I work down at the BK Lounge. I’m a bouncer at the BK Lounge.’ ‘Can we get in?’ ‘Not without coups, not without coups baby.’”
When Dane wasn’t kickin’ it at the BK Lounge, he was consuming every comedy special and stand-up album he could get his hands on, including the seminal works of icons like George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Bill Cosby, and even Jerry Lewis. “I watched anyone and everyone because I admired the art of stand-up comedy,” he says. “For me, there isn’t one specific hero in comedy. I love comics.”
Dane Cook takes to the stage
Dane finally took to the stage in 1990, performing on low-budget open mics and as a member of an energetic improv troupe called Al and the Monkeys. Five years and literally hundreds of shows later, he got his first big break when he landed a recurring role on Maybe This Time, a short-lived ABC sitcom starring Betty White and Marie Osmond.
Dane Cook makes his big-screen debut
Although comedy continued to be Dane’s main focus, he began to increase his exposure over the next few years with small roles in films like Flypaper (1997), Buddy (1997), Spiral (1999), Mystery Men (1999), and Simon Sez, in which he shared the screen with professional oddball Dennis Rodman. He also treated fans of his stand-up to sizzling routines on Comedy Central, Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn.
Dane Cook releases harmful if swallowed
Dane helped increase his exposure even further in 2003 with the launch of his personal website, DaneCook.com, and the release of his first comedy CD/DVD set, entitled Harmful If Swallowed. Amidst the chaos, he even found time to appear in the Farrelly Brothers’ hit comedy Stuck On You, starring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear.
Dane up the charts with retaliation
The following year brought more film projects, as Dane starred in the motorcycle thriller Torgue (2004) and the Bernie Mac baseball comedy Mr. 3000 (2004). Although both films met with mediocre success, nothing could match the reception of Dane’s second comedy album, Retaliation. Released on July 26, 2005, the CD/DVD set debuted at No. 4 on Billboard’s Top Albums chart, making it the most successful comedy album since Steve Martin’s A Wild and Crazy Guy took America by storm in 1979. “I wanted it to be really over the top — the title, the content, the artwork, everything,” he says. “I spent five months straight tweaking it, working on it, doing photo shoots, and the result is it came out at No. 4, which is just unprecedented.” The album would be certified gold before the year was up.
Retaliation’s remarkable success paved the way for well-received appearances on the MTV Video Music Awards, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show, and Saturday Night Live, which Dane hosted on December 3, 2005. By then hotter than a snake’s ass in a wagon ride, Dane capped off the year with appearances in the Ryan Reynolds comedy Waiting… and the Jessica Biel drama London.
Dane Cook gets busy
The rest of 2006 proved to be the busiest year of Dane’s career, as he starred in six films, including Employee of the Month, Farce of the Penguins, Mr. Brooks, Good Luck Chuck, Transformers, and Dan in Real Life. Dane hopes to continue to perform stand-up. “I love stand-up, it’s my baby, and 15 years in it’s getting better and better,” he says, “so I would like to continue to do that. I’d love to take this huge fan base that I’ve accumulated, and hopefully start telling them some new stories and giving them some new comedy, using film.”
To buy a cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?
