Jimmy Kimmel was born James Christian Kimmel on the 13th of November 1967. He grew up in the Mill Basin neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York and is the eldest of 3 children. His parents, James John Kimmel and Joan Kimmel (née Iacono) worked at American Express and as a homemaker respectively. James was also an IBM executive. Joan is of Italian descent from the volcanic island of Ischia. After the 1883 earthquake, her family migrated to the USA. His father is of German descent, as two of Jimmy Kimmel’s great-great-grandparents were German immigrants. His surname was “Kümmel”, which means caraway in German, generations back.
At the age of 9, Jimmy Kimmel’s family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada where he attended and graduated from Ed W. Clark High School in the Clark County School District. It was at this point that he discovered David Letterman, the man who has remained his idol. For university, Jimmy went to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV)—where he got an honorary degree in 2013—for one year and then on to the Arizona State University for two years. He, however, didn’t get a degree from the latter school.
It was when he was in college that he found his love for show biz, testing out the airwaves at UNLV first and the Arizona State University. At the age of 21, Jimmy Kimmel’s professional radio career began. Funny enough, at the start of his career he was fired from the radio shows he was on in Seattle, Tampa Tucson, and Phoenix. This bouncing around would eventually end when he would find a stable place on the Los Angeles radio station KROQ as ‘Jimmy the Sports Guy’ on The Kevin and Bean Show.
His debut on television was as the host of the Comedy Central game show Win Ben Stein’s Money in 1997. Jimmy Kimmel’s persona offered comic tendencies, a contrast to the show’s eponymous challenger. Together, Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Stein won a 1999 Daytime Emmy award for Best Game Show Host and got a Daytime Emmy nomination in 2001. He went on to co-host (and co-produce) The Man Show, another Comedy Central program. The success from The Man Show enabled Kimmel to start a production company called Jackhole Productions alongside his co-host Adam Carolla and co-producer Daniel Kellison.
With the number of successfully produced shows under his belt, he got the attention of ABC they reached out to him afterward. In 2003 he left The Man Show to begin hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC.
