Date of Birth : Mar 11th 1970
After graduating from South-Doyle High School in 1989 in Knoxville, he moved to California to become an actor, and at first appeared in commercials and as an extra. Not getting the big break he had hoped for, he began writing and pitching article ideas to various magazines. He also attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts on a scholarship, but dropped out within two weeks. An idea to test self-defense equipment on himself was picked up by the Jeff Tremaine-helmed skateboarding magazine Big Brother, and the stunts were filmed and included in Big Brother’s Number Two video. Knoxville’s antics became a staple for Big Brother, whose colorful cast of contributors also included Chris Pontius, Steve-O and Dave England.
Eventually, Knoxville, Tremaine, Sean Cliver and Dave Carnie produced a pilot that used Big Brother footage along with footage from Bam Margera’s CKY videos, and with help from Tremaine’s friend, film director Spike Jonze, they pitched a series to various networks. A deal was made with MTV and Jackass was born. Knoxville also participated in the Gumball 3000 for Jackass along with co-stars Steve-O and Chris Pontius and Jackass director Jeff Tremaine and producer Dimitry Elyashkevich. Prior to Jackass landing on MTV, Knoxville and company turned down an offer from Saturday Night Live to perform similar stunts for the show on a weekly basis (Knoxville eventually did host SNL in 2005).
Knoxville has been in several feature films. Among his most high-profile roles was opposite Seann William Scott in Jay Chandrasekhar’s adaptation of The Dukes of Hazzard. He has also worked with director John Waters in A Dirty Shame and starred in Daltry Calhoun, written and directed by Katrina Holden Bronson and produced by Quentin Tarantino. In The Ringer, Knoxville was cast as an able-bodied office worker who joins the Special Olympics to pay for a surgical operation on his gardener. He played a two-headed alien in Men in Black II, which also starred Will Smith. He also starred in the movie Lords of Dogtown as “Topper Burks”, made a minor appearance in the 2000 movie Coyote Ugly, and was featured as a guest voice on an episode of King of the Hill. Knoxville appeared as a supporting character to The Rock in the 2004 remake of Walking Tall.