Jamie Masada

Masada's passion for comedy started at age 6 in Iran when his father, a cantor and accordion player, rewarded him for being good by taking him to the window of a local TV repair shop to watch The Three Stooges. Although the reception was poor and they couldn't hear the dialog, the youngster was mesmerized as his father improvised. "I laughed until I cried," he says. Years later, at a wedding celebration in Israel, a Hollywood producer encountered Masada doing a Three Stooges imitation and encouraged his father to send the young talent to America. Confident in his son's abilities, Masada's father pawned his beloved accordion to help raise the necessary funds. Just 14 years old, Masada arrived in the U.S. in 1977 with little more than the shirt on his back and a sense of humor. Sleeping in a garage, he juggled odd jobs to survive and send money home to his family. However, none of these obstacles deterred his passion for comedy. "My father once told me," he recalls, "making people laug