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Ron James is a Canadian stand-up comedian.
James was born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia; his family later moved to Halifax during his youth. He attended Acadia University, studying history and political science with the intention of becoming a history teacher. During his time there he came under the influence of Helen Starr Boggs, who headed the theatre program there, as a result of a course he was taking. After graduating, he moved to Toronto and joined The Second City troupe located there, working with them during the 1980s. 1989 movie The Dream team.
He later moved to Los Angeles during the early 1990s for three years and got a spot on a late-night syndicated series produced by Ron Howard’s Imagine TV, where he landed the role of Bucky Fergus, a Canadian transplant who worked for the City of Derby, Wisconsin in the Talk parody sitcom My Talk Show, which ran from 1990 to 1991. After that show was cancelled, he made some guest appearances in TV shows and an appearance in the movie Ernest Rides Again but mostly experienced rejection during this time while incurring sizable debts. He returned to Canada in 1993 and turned his experience in L.A. into a stage show in 1994 called Up & Down in Shaky Town: One Man's Journey through the California Dream, which was also shown as a special on The Comedy Network. Afterwards, he came across the work of Scottish comedian Billy Connolly, whose style helped shape his own and inspired him to start doing stand-up.
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