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Biography
Early life
Leary was born in Worcester, Massachusetts to Irish Catholic immigrants John Leary (an auto mechanic who died in 1985) and Nora (a maid); Leary holds both Irish and American citizenship. Through marriage, Leary is a distant cousin of talk show host Conan O'Brien, and has jokingly said on Late Night with Conan O'Brien that "All Irish People are related." His name is often misspelled as "Dennis", instead of "Denis." This comes out in one of his comedy routines in which he mentions how his father had a peculiar way of writing which included "D's" that look like "P's"; it lead to notes that were written to Denis' teachers that looked like they said "Penis." This is how Leary got the nickname "PenisMan".
Career
Leary first became famous through an MTV-Sketch in which he ranted about R.E.M. Several other commericals for MTV followed, in which Leary would rant at high speeds about a variety of topics. He has released two records of his stand-up comedy: No Cure For Cancer (1993) and Lock 'N Load (1997). In late 2004 he released the EP Merry F#%$in' Christmas, which included a mix of new music, previously unreleased recordings, and some tracks from Lock 'N Load.
In 1994, his sardonic song about the American lower-middle-class male, "(I'm an) Asshole", achieved much notoriety. It was voted #1 in a major Australian youth radio poll (the Triple J Hottest 100) as well as reaching #2 in the singles chart in that country. The video also became a staple of MTV's late-night programming. Due to its explicit and controversial content, however, it received limited airplay on mainstream American radio stations.
Although he says he is most at home on stage doing stand-up, Leary has appeared as an actor in over 40 movies, including The Sandlot, Monument Ave., The Match Maker, The Ref, Suicide Kings, Wag the Dog, Demolition Man, and Operation Dumbo Drop. He has also starred in two television series, The Job and Rescue Me. In addition, Leary has provided voices for characters in animated films such as the saber-toothed tiger Diego in Ice Age and 'Francis' in A Bug's Life. He's produced (and still produces) numerous movies, television shows, specials through his production company Apostle; these include Comedy Central's Shorties Watching Shorties and the movie Blow.
Material Controversy
For many years, Leary had been friends with fellow comedian Bill Hicks. However, when Hicks heard Leary's 1993 release No Cure For Cancer he was upset and claimed Leary was stealing his material. This was due to the similarity in topics covered and some of Hicks' punchlines, particularly those from Hicks' releases of Sane Man (1989) and Dangerous (1990), allegedly having variants in Leary's act. The friendship ended abruptly as a result. Leary has said he wanted to patch things up before Hicks died in 1994, though this confession happened several years after Hicks' death.
While it has never been proved that Leary stole material from anyone other than Bill Hicks (a claim which he fiercely denies), some comedians (notably Joe Rogan and Greg Giraldo) and especially fans loyal to Hicks consider aspects of Leary's act and persona to be stolen. However, many other comedians (including Colin Quinn - and, according to some questionable sources, Janeane Garofalo, a Hicks fan and narrator of a 2003 documentary about Hicks) have formed close personal and/or professional relationships with Leary, which suggests that the opinion of him as a material thief is not shared by everyone within the profession.
This controversy was addressed in The Bill Hicks Story by Cynthia True:
Leary was in Montreal to host the Nasty Show at Club Soda and Colleen (one of Bill Hicks' managers) was coordinating the talent so she was standing backstage when she heard Leary doing material that sounded incredibly similar to old Hicks guitar riffs, including his perennial Jim Fixx joke: "Keith Richards outlived Jim Fixx, the runner and health nut. Dude, the plot thickens." When Leary came off-stage, Colleen said, more stunned than angry (but still mad), "Hey, you know that's Bill Hicks' material! Do you know that's his material?" Leary allegedly stood there, stared at her without saying a word, and apparently briskly left the dressing room."
The book cites several other examples of lines in No Cure for Cancer that Leary allegedly used from older Bill Hicks rants, and points out that this doesn't include the "intellectual" or philosophical rantings of Hicks' act. Hicks himself said: "I have a scoop for you. I stole his act. I camouflaged it with punchlines, and to really throw people off, I did it before he did."
Others point out that most comedians simply base material on the "hot" topics of their time, and that Hicks and Leary were far from being the only comedians (albeit among the more memorable) who had routines on subjects like the Judas Priest Trial or backmasking in general (e.g. Brian Haley), comparing different drugs (e.g. George Carlin, Robin Williams), the death of Jim Fixx (an irony jabbed at by many, including several late-night talk show hosts). Similarly, it's somewhat common for comedians who are smokers to have routines regarding the rise of anti-cigarette smoking campaigns.
Leary Firefighters Foundation
On December 3, 1999, six firefighters from Leary's hometown of Worcester were killed in a massive warehouse fire. Among the dead were Leary's cousin, Jerry Lucey, and his close childhood friend, Lt. Tommy Spencer. In response, the comedian founded the Leary Firefighters Foundation. Since its creation in the year 2000, the foundation has distributed over $2.5 million (USD) to fire departments in the Worcester, Boston, New York City areas for equipment, training materials, new vehicles, new facilities.
A separate fund run by Leary's foundation, the Fund for New York's Bravest, has distributed over $2 million (USD) to the families of the 343 firemen killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, as well as providing funding for necessities such as a new mobile command center, first responder training and a high-rise simulator for the FDNY's training campus. This new fund was established because the families of the Worcester fire did not want to include New York families into the fund, as a result Leary created a separate fund for New York.
As the foundation's president, Leary has been active in all of the fundraising, and usually presents large checks and donated equipment personally. The close relationship he has developed with the FDNY, as well as individual firefighters across the New York/New England area, has resulted in Leary's most recent television show, Rescue Me, a dramedy on FX. In the pilot episode of the show, he is seen wearing a Leary Firefighter Foundation 9-11 Memorial T-Shirt.
Leary has close ties with 107.3 WAAF-FM, who in 2000 released the station album "Survive This!." Part of the proceeds from this album were donated to the Leary Firefighters Foundation.
Emerson College
Leary is a very proud graduate of Emerson College in Boston. At the school he founded the Emerson Comedy Workshop, a troupe that continues to thrive on-campus to this day. After graduating with the Emerson Class of 1979, he took up a job with the school teaching comedy writing classes and maintained the job for five years. At Emerson's 2005 commencement ceremony, he spoke and received an honorary doctorate. During a December 2005 appearance at Emerson's Cutler Majestic Theatre he claimed that Emerson College "saved his life" by giving him direction and that throughout his career he's "never forgotten" the lessons he learned there. He also claimed that he was the reason Emerson students were no longer allowed on the roofs of the buildings at Emerson, due to an incident following Game 6 of the 1975 World Series where he and some classmates allegedly poured a large bucket of ice water down onto a Cincinnati Reds fan on the sidewalk below.
