Penn Jillette

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Penn Fraser Jillette (born March 5, 1955) is an American magic, best known for his work as part of the comedy magic duo Penn and Teller.

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Contents

Biography

Penn Jillette, the talking magician, is the larger of the two (6'6"/1.98 m to Teller's 5'9"/1.75 m), and was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts. He attended Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Greatest Show on Earth Clown College (he has apologized for this). He became disillusioned with the type of magic acts that present magic as "real" by watching The Amazing Kreskin on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He attended a performance by The Amazing Randi with Teller at the age of eighteen which suggested the idea of presenting magic as an openly acknowledged trick rather than as a mysterious power.

Penn married television producer Emily Zolten during an impromptu ceremony at a Las Vegas wedding chapel on November 23, 2004. Their first child, Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette, was born on June 3, 2005. On a January 2006 episode of the radio show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, Jillette explained that his wife suggested they use "CrimeFighter" because she herself does not have a middle name, people don't generally know other people's middle names, and they might as well "have some fun with it."

He occasionally notes with irony that although he lives and works on the Las Vegas Strip, he does not gamble (though he has written a book on how to win at poker), and has never had a drink of Alcoholic beverage or done recreational drugs.

Projects

Penn appeared as "Drell" on the TV series Sabrina the Teenage Witch and was a voice announcer for the U.S. based cable network Comedy Central in the early 1990s. One of his earliest guest roles was on Miami Vice.

In July of 1999, Penn was granted patent number 5,920,923 for his hot-tub-like device called the "Hydro-therapeutic stimulator" which is intended to be used to stimulate a woman.

Penn has collaborated with avant-garde musicians The Residents. Penn's own band is called The Captain Howdy. He was also a member of Bongos, Bass, and Bob, in which he played bass guitar. Penn is also the owner of the entire catalog of the band Half-Japanese, headed by Jad Fair. He is featured in the Half Japanese documentary "The Band that Would be King". Penn and fellow Clown College alumnus Steven Banks collaborated in writing Love Tapes – a romantic comedy stage show which premiered February 2005 at Sacred Fools Theater in Hollywood.

With actor Paul Provenza, Jillette co-produced and co-directed the The Aristocrats (2005), a documentary film tracing the life of an extremely off-color joke of the same name.

On January 3, 2006, Penn started hosting a live hour-long radio talk show heard on various radio stations known as Free FM: WFNY-FM New York, WCKG Chicago, KIFR San Francisco, WJFK-FM Washington, D.C., WKRK Detroit, KSCF San Diego, and WHFS Baltimore. He is also heard on KSFN "Spike 1140" AM broadcasting in Las Vegas.

Penn Jillette, along with his partner Teller, produce and host Bullshit!! (currently, the 4th season is in production), in which the pair debunk supernatural and commonly believed urban myths, such as the claim that bottled water is superior to tap water and the claims of Intelligent Design being scientific.

Appearance

Speculation arises from Penn's red fingernail on his left hand. From an FAQ from Penn and Teller's official website, there are three common answers:

  1. It means he once shot a man for asking personal questions.
  2. When Penn first began performing, his mother told him to get a manicure because people would be looking at his hands. In response to this, Penn had all of his nails painted red as a joke. The one remaining red fingernail is in honor of his dear mother.
  3. The red fingernail provides excellent misdirection and is just plain cool.

Books

External links

Information provided by wikipedia.org

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