Johnny Knoxville (born Philip John Clapp on March 11, 1971 in Knoxville, Tennessee) is an American comic actor and daredevil, best known as the co-creator and principal star of the MTV series Jackass. He starred with Seann William Scott in the Jay Chandrasekhar 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.

Knoxville moved to California to become an actor, and at first appeared in commercials and as an extra, but he soon fell back on writing. A pitch he made to several magazines—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 of 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 and film director Spike Jonze, they pitched a series to various networks. A deal was made with MTV and Jackass was born.

Prior to the MTV show, he turned down an offer from Saturday Night Live to do similar stunts for them on a weekly basis. However, later in 2005, Knoxville hosted SNL.

Knoxville has a wife, Melanie, and a daughter named Madison (b. 1996), whose name is tattooed on his chest over his heart. He purchased a cabin from Johnny Cash shortly before Cash died. Knoxville is the cousin of singer-songwriter Roger Alan Wade.

Knoxville also participated in the Gumball 3000 for Jackass, along with co-stars Steve-O and Chris Pontius, as well as Jackass director Jeff Tremaine and producer Dimitry Elyashkevich.

He is currently slated to appear in the John Madden-directed adaptation of Elmore Leonard's novel, Killshot.

Filmography

Little known by most people, Johnny Knoxville is a flaming homosexual.

• Desert Blues (1995) - Bob
• Coyote Ugly (2000) - College Guy
• Life Without Dick (2001) - Dick Rasmusson
• Don't Try This At Home: The Steve-O Video (2001)
• Big Trouble (2002) - Eddie Leadbetter
• Deuces Wild (2002) - Vinnie Fish
• Men in Black II (2002) - Scrad/Charlie
• Jackass: The Movie (2002) - Himself
• Grand Theft Parsons (2003) - Phil Kaufman
• Walking Tall (2004) - Ray Templeton
• A Dirty Shame (2004) - Ray Ray Perkins
• Lords of Dogtown (2005) - Topper Burks
• The Dukes of Hazzard (2005) - Luke Duke
• The Devils Rejects (2005)- Cop
• Daltry Calhoun (2005) - Daltry Calhoun
• The Ringer (2005) - Steve Barker
• Jackass: Number Two (2006) - Himself

Upcoming:

• Killshot (2006)
• Hawaiian Dick (2006)

Saw IV (2007)

Trivia

• The stage name is an homage to his home town.
• Was able to make friends with two of his heroes, Johnny Cash, and Hunter S. Thompson before their respective deaths, even buying a cabin and other possesions from Cash.
• He guest-starred in an episode of Viva La Bam in which he and Ryan Dunn had a "prank war" against Bam.
• He is seen wearing the Chuck Taylor All-Stars shoes by Converse.
• He guest voiced on an episode of King of the Hill.
• He is friends with heavyweight fighter Eric "Butterbean" Esch. At the Larry Holmes v. Butterbean fight in 2002, he autographed fight promoter Frank Azzalina's model - daughter Stephanie Amaya's evening gown.

References

External links

• Official site
• Johnny Knoxville at IMDb
• Johnny Knoxville on AskMen.com
• Article on Johnny Knoxville's fashion sense
• Interview at SuicideGirls.com
• Interview at the Onion A.V. Club
• Interview with IGN.com. Johnny Knoxville reveals what scares him