Peter Farrelly, born 1956, is 57 today. One of the two Farrelly Brothers, he’s responsible in part for some of the great comedies of the 90’s, and many other decent comedies besides. Few people can say that they’ve contributed comedies that are still referenced today, but for some, there’s no way you can mention hair gel and Big Gulps without tipping your hat to his influence.
Peter was raised in Rhode Island and went to college at Columbia University after a brief stint at UMass Amherst, getting accepted to the program with a screenplay that would later make the film Outside Providence, the one where Alec Baldwin played another of his gruff father characters. One of the first big breaks for him and his brother was as co-writers on the infamous Seinfeld episode “The Virgin,” which introduced the Marla character played by Jane Leeves and gave audience the scene where Elaine discusses her diaphragm. The first film the brothers directed was Dumb and Dumber, one of the finest comedies of the 90’s, which was a huge smash and helped propel Jim Carrey’s career to the A-list, along with giving Jeff Daniels an anomaly of a scene on the toilet (Google Jeff Daniels talking about the toilet scene with Clint Eastwood. Trust me.) They followed that film up with Kingpin and There’s Something About Mary, the latter of which gave us the hair gel scene and the former of which gave us one of Bill Murray’s weirdest performances.
The 2000’s brought more films of varying quality but unique vision. Remember Me, Myself and Irene, which gave Carrey another series of weird tics and scenes, one involving a cow’s rear end? Or Stuck on You, which featured Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as conjoined twins and somehow also involved Cher and Meryl Streep? Perhaps their finest film of this period was Shallow Hal, the one where Gwyneth Paltrow donned a fat suit to play a woman who Jack Black finds beautiful on the inside and the outside. Fever Pitch was also outside their wheelhouse but equally pleasant, where Drew Barrymore learned to love a man obsessed with the Red Sox. And for producing comedies as funny as Dumb and Dumber and Mary, Peter proved that he can make a comedy as equally unfunny this year with Movie 43, which should be burned and never seen with human eyes.
Peter is currently in production on Dumb and Dumber To, one of the best titles there could possibly be.
Also born today:
Milla Jovovich (38)
Giovanni Ribisi (39)
Sarah Paulson (39)
Rian Johnson (40)
Laurie Holden (41)
