Jack Black

Thomas Jacob "Jack" Black (born August 28, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, musician and producer.

His acting career has been extensive, starring primarily in comedy films. He is known for his roles in High Fidelity (2000), Shallow Hal (2001), School of Rock (2003), King Kong (2005), The Holiday (2006), Nacho Libre (2006), Kung Fu Panda films (2008, 2011 and 2016), Tropic Thunder (2008), Bernie (2011) and Goosebumps (2015). He has been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards. Black is the lead vocalist of the comedic rock group Tenacious D, which he formed in 1994 with friend Kyle Gass. They have released the albums Tenacious D, The Pick of Destiny, and Rize of the Fenix.

Early life

Thomas Jacob Black was born on August 28, 1969, in Santa Monica, California, the son of two satellite engineers, Judith Love (née Cohen), who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope and is also a writer, and Thomas William Black. His mother was born Jewish, and his father converted to Judaism. Black was raised in the Jewish faith, attending Hebrew school and celebrating a Bar Mitzvah. On a guest appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, he said his surname may have come from the occupational name of blacksmith.

Jack Black (author)

Jack Black (1871 - presumably 1932) was a late-19th-century/early-20th-century hobo and professional burglar, author, and librarian for the San Francisco Call. Born in 1871 near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, he was raised from infancy in the U.S. state of Missouri. He wrote You Can't Win (Macmillan, 1926) a memoir or sketched autobiography describing his days on the road and life as an outlaw. Black's book was written as an anti-crime book urging criminals to go straight, but it is also his statement of belief in the futility of prisons and the criminal justice system, hence the title of the book. Jack Black was writing from experience, having spent thirty years (fifteen of which were spent in various prisons) as a traveling criminal and offers tales of being a cross-country stick-up man, home burglar, petty thief, and opium fiend. He gained fame through association with William S. Burroughs and his writings had a profound effect on the writings and lives of all the Beat Generation.

Jack Black (rat catcher)

Jack Black was a rat-catcher and mole destroyer from Battersea, England during the middle of the nineteenth century. Black cut a striking figure in his self-made "uniform" of scarlet topcoat, waistcoat, and breeches, with a huge leather sash inset with cast-iron rats. Black promoted himself as the Queen's official rat-catcher, but he never held a royal warrant.

He is known particularly through Henry Mayhew's account in London Labour and the London Poor, where he tells Mayhew of his work and experiences, including a number of occasions when he nearly died from infection following rat bites.

When he caught any unusually coloured rats, he bred them, to establish new colour varieties. He would sell his home-bred domesticated coloured rats as pets, mainly, as Black observed, "to well-bred young ladies to keep in squirrel cages". Beatrix Potter is believed to have been one of his customers, and she dedicated the book Samuel Whiskers to her rat of the same name. The more sophisticated ladies of court kept their rats in dainty gilded cages, and even Queen Victoria herself kept a rat or two. It was in this way that domesticated—or fancy—rats were established. Black also supplied live rats for rat-baiting in pits, a popular mid-Victorian pastime.

Jack Black (disambiguation)

Jack Black (born 1969) is an American actor and singer from Tenacious D.

Jack Black may also refer to:

See also

List of Viz comic strips

Following is a list of recurring or notable one-off strips from the British adult spoof comic magazine Viz:

A - E