Denis Leary was born and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Nora and John Leary, Irish immigrants who had grown up together. After a childhood in the 1960s, Leary went to Emerson College in Boston, where he tried his hand at acting and writing. He was a charter member of Emerson's Comedy Workshop, and taught at the college for five years after graduating. By that point he had written several pieces for magazines and had worked at stand-up comedy for a time. In 1990 he and his wife Ann flew to London to perform in the BBC's Paramount City. That weekend Ann's water broke. Their planned weekend trip became a stay of months, and Denis, with not a whole lot to do in London, wrote a one-man comedy act. He brought friends in from the States, and they wrote songs to perform on stage. Leary, with Chris Phillips and Adam Roth on guitar, performed "No Cure For Cancer" at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival in Scotland. Despite some protests about the title, the show won the Critic's Award and the BBC Festival Recommendation. The next year the show was moved to America, and it was eventually taped and broadcast on Showtime (No Cure for Cancer). The show spawned a book, CD, cassette, and a videotape. It also started Leary's movie career. Since then, he has starred in several films and has had two of his own TV series.


"Rescue Me" (2004): $250,000/episode (2009-10)
Two If by Sea (1996): $1,000,000

Originally had a role in Beautiful Girls (1996), directed by good friend Ted Demme, but had to pull out due to schedule conflicts. Cousin of Conan O'Brien and Jane O'Brien. Loves sports and originally wanted to be an NHL star. That all changed when he got kicked off his high school hockey team because of poor grades. He starred in three films directed by Ted Demme: Who's the Man? (1993), The Ref (1994), and Snitch (1996). Demme also directed both his concert specials. Leary and Demme co-produced Blow (2001), and both men were involved in SUBWAYStories: Tales from the Underground (1997) (TV). He is one of the six godparents (all males) of Damian Charles Bing, son of Elizabeth Hurley, and attended the child's baptism at Immaculate Conception church in Mayfair, London. Irish-American. His interest in the perils of firemen and his co-creation of the series "Rescue Me" (2004) stemmed from a tragic 1999 warehouse fire in his hometown of Worcester, Massachusets, that took the lives of six firemen, including his cousin and a childhood friend. Denis got behind the wheel of a fire engine during September 11, 2001, when the New York Fire Department was short-handed responding to the collapse of the World Trade center. Joe Rogan has claimed that Leary's "angry comedian" act, first used in his stage show "No Cure for Cancer" (later a Showtime special, No Cure for Cancer (1992) (TV)) was based on the comedy act of Bill Hicks. Leary skewered the charge (http://us.imdb.com/news/ni0070130). Good friend of Mario Cantone and Gina Gershon at Emerson College. Leary's "Rescue Me" (2004) character, Tommy Gavin, was probably named for his childhood friend Tommy Spencer, a firefighter who was killed in the December 1999 warehouse fire that inspired Leary to establish the Leary Firefighters Foundation in 2000. Lives in New York City. Good friend of Joe Mantegna.