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Rick Bronson
Starting out in 1981 as a children's magician in Montreal, Canada, a 12-year-old Rick Bronson eventually became one of the most popular kidshow entertainers in the city. Four years later, at 16, he decided to try stand-up comedy, and launched a parallel career that would soon become his exclusive vocation.
With much of his early act built around some of the same magic he had been doing at children's shows (a comedy Zipper Dove Bag routine, an interactive, multi-phase silk vanish and reproduction sequence, etc.), Bronson quickly realized he was being looked down on by his fellow comedians as a "prop comic" and slowly phased out the magic, relying exclusively on his sharpening stand-up and improv skills. Before long, he began performing at comedy clubs across the country, then abroad, and his explosive, high-energy, Sam Kinison-esque charm earned him a colossal following.
In 1994, Bronson moved to Edmonton, Alberta and married model Tammy MacPherson, with whom he now has two children (Noah and Tanner), and over the next decade, he taped a national comedy special for CTV (Comedy Now Presents: Rick Bronson), hosted seminars for the likes of Bill Clinton and Dr. Phil, and won seven Canadian Organization of Campus Activities (C.O.C.A.) Comedian of the Year awards. He also created, hosted and produced three seasons of the hit travel series, The Tourist, which aired on The Travel Channel (and its affiliates) in over 20 countries, and earned Bronson A.M.P.I.A awards for Best Male Host and Best Light Information Series.
In 2005, a business opportunity arose that would keep Bronson tied down to his home base for awhile when he opened a high-end comedy club called Rick Bronson’s The Comic Strip on “Bourbon Street” in the world famous West Edmonton Mall. The club quickly gained a reputation among both comedians and audiences for being one of the finest in the country, and now books only the best headliners in North America.
Perhaps not surprisingly, through all of this, magic has never entirely left Bronson’s blood, and he still has three original routines he will pull out to close a longer set if he’s inclined, including a version of Tricky (a.k.a. “Topsy Turvy”) Bottles called “Ricky Bottles” that was published in Seven By Rick Bronson (Acer, 2005). Rick has also had original material published in Genii Magazine, and appears on two of David Acer’s lecture DVDs—On Screen & Other Mysteries (2005) and Open Traveller (2007).