Jim Meskimen

Jim Meskimen
Meskimen at the 2014 Annie Awards
Born	James Ross Meskimen (1959-09-10) September 10, 1959 (age 67) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Occupations	Actor comedian impressionist visual artist
Years active	1984–present
Spouse	Tamra Shockley ​ (m. 1987)​
Children	Taylor Meskimen
Parents	Freeman Meskimen (father) Marion Ross (mother)
Website	www.jimmeskimen.com

Jim Meskimen (born September 10, 1959) is an American actor and comedian.

Early life

Jim Meskimen is the son of Marion Ross. He attended Taft High in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, where he met his wife, Tamra Shockley. He was the cartoonist for the school newspaper, and also acted in plays.

After high school, he attended the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). Before that first year was over, he returned home for a time and received training in animation at Hanna-Barbera studios in Hollywood, under the apprenticeship of Harry Love.

Shortly after, he began working for producer Doug Wildey, who had created the original Jonny Quest series. Meskimen was assistant storyboard artist to veteran comic book artist Don Rico on the animated series, Jana of the Jungle.

After a season at Hanna-Barbera, in 1978 Meskimen returned to UCSC to study general subjects, painting, drawing and lithography. He also did parts in plays, but did not take classes in the Drama department, preferring to concentrate on his visual art education.

He studied art history in five courses with Jasper Rose, a fixture at UCSC, who later became the inspiration for an art historian character, Professor Knestor Jackdaws.

He studied painting with Eduardo Carrillo, a Mexican muralist and teacher, and sculpture with Hardy Hanson.

In 1980, Meskimen travelled to Galicia, Spain to begin a period of intensive training in classical painting with Argüello and a handful of other students. He returned in 1981 and resumed studies at UCSC, studying sculpture, printmaking and painting, as well as private training with Miguel, who continued teaching at the university.

When not painting, Meskimen participated in major theatrical productions in Santa Cruz, both at the university and in local theater.

After graduating UCSC In 1982 he returned with Argüello to Galicia, and resumed private studies.

Career

In 1983, after living for a time in Madrid on his own, he had an encounter with actor Harvey Keitel and he decided to pursue acting, and moved to New York City.

In New York, he worked as a visual artist, doing illustrations, cartoons and commercial art for various companies. He landed a job designing characters for Rankin/Bass's original series ThunderCats, then in its first season. He worked with producer Jules Bass on expanding the story, and contributed to the ThunderCats "bible."

While working for Rankin/Bass, Meskimen visited one of the recording sessions with actors Bob McFadden, Earl Hammond, Peter Newman, Earl Hyman and others, and began working in radio and TV voiceovers.

He did hundreds of radio and television commercials, and became a series regular on the animated show The Comic Strip, produced by his old employer Rankin/Bass.

He became the voice of several brands in the 1980s and 1990s. He was the voice of the channel that became Comedy Central, (then named HA!) and did campaigns for Swatch Watch as Doctor Swatch, a character he created with marketing head Steven Rechtshaffner.

He became on-camera spokesman on television and radio commercials for Skaggs Alfa Beta grocery stores in 1986.

He worked as a man-on-the-street interviewer for banks, cars, retail chains and other clients, in spontaneous, off-the-cuff comedic campaigns that won dozens of industry awards. Among these were Schnucks Markets, Food Lion, and Kash & Karry.

During those New York years (1983-1993), Meskimen studied and performed improv with several companies, chiefly INTERPLAY and did hundreds of live shows at the National Improvisational Theatre on Eighth Avenue, Chelsea.

On the invitation of producers, he and fellow Interplay member Christopher Smith guest starred several times on Britain's Whose Line Is It, Anyway?

His first film role was in Ron Howard's The Paper, starring Michael Keaton.

In 1993, he moved home to LA with his family to start a career in TV and film, beginning with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and a role in director Ron Howard's Oscar-nominated Apollo 13. Howard cast Meskimen in no fewer than five feature films, including The Grinch and Frost/Nixon.

He appeared in an early episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as professor Jeremy Mansfield, who was loosely modeled after Robin Williams' character in the film Dead Poets Society.

In early 2003, he met Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, the brothers who founded JibJab Media. He voiced early hits, including Arnold for President, This Land, and Second Term.  He continued to work with the Spiridellis brothers on their Emmy and BAFTA award-winning children's series Ask the StoryBots, and other projects.

He has appeared on major television programs; Friends, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, This is Us, SWAT, Hunters, NCIS, Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Young Sheldon, The Big Bang Theory, to name but a few.

Meskimen's character voices have been heard on a number of video games and animated shows including Star Trek: Resurgence, Avengers Assemble, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue!, Pinky and the Brain, Phineas and Ferb, The Legend of Korra, and Avatar: The Last Airbender. He has voiced the Genie in Disney's Aladdin franchise since 2008.

His viral hit, Shakespeare in Celebrity Voices, brought him global attention on YouTube and led to many opportunities, including performing on America's Got Talent in 2013, where his improvised celebrity impressions at Radio City Music Hall earned him a standing ovation.

He has performed his live one-man show, JIMPRESSIONS, in Hollywood, Australia and the U.K.

In 2017, he wrote a screenplay for a short film, which became "Son to Son," and won festival awards. He starred in the short, with actor Nick Lane, with Taron Lexton directing.

His performance as the troubled, opioid addict father in "Son to Son" garnered praise; the UK Film Review said: "Meskimen delivers a tragically believable character in a short space of time to great effect."

He provided the voice of Colonel Harland Sanders for the KFC brand on radio, web and television ads for many years, starting in 2016.

As an audiobook narrator, he has worked on hundreds of titles for all major publishers and received awards for his narration.

Directing multi-cast audiobooks for Galaxy Audio was his full-time job from 2005 to 2009, when he worked as senior director to complete hundreds of hours of audio of the fiction work of L. Ron Hubbard.

The multi-cast production of "Battlefield Earth, a Saga of the Year 3000," which Meskimen directed and performed in, won an Audie Award in 2017.

He appeared on "America's Got Talent" as a celebrity impressionist in 2013 and as a finalist performed at Radio City Music Hall, NYC, receiving a standing ovation.

Since 2020, he has played roles on television in Gaslit with Sean Penn and Julia Roberts, Hunters, and as the recurring character of Cary Hubbard in Apple TV+'s The Big Door Prize, opposite Chris O'Dowd.

Personal life

He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Tamra, who is a co-founder of The Acting Center, an acting school and performance venue in Sherman Oaks, California. They have one daughter, actress, singer and award-winning audio book narrator Taylor Meskimen.

Meskimen is a practicing Scientologist.

Filmography

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jim Meskimen.

• Official website
• Jim Meskimen at IMDb