Jon Favreau

Jon Favreau was born in Queens, New York on October 19, 1966, the only child of Madeleine (Balkoff), an elementary school teacher, and Charles Favreau, a special education teacher. His father has French-Canadian, German, and Italian ancestry, and his mother was from a Russian Jewish family. He attended the Bronx High School of Science before furthering his studies at Queens College in 1984. Dropping out just credits away from receiving his degree, Jon moved to Chicago where he focused on comedy and performed at several Chicago improvisational theaters, including the ImprovOlympic and the Improv Institute.

In 1997, Jon appeared favorably on several episodes of the popular TV sitcom, Friends (1994), as Pete Becker, the humdrum but extremely wealthy suitor for Courteney Cox's "Monica" character, and also appeared to fine advantage on the Tracey Takes On. (1996) comedy series. He later took on the biopic mini-movie, Rocky Marciano (1999), portraying the prizefighter himself in a highly challenging dramatic role and received excellent reviews. Other engagingly offbeat everyman films roles came Jon's way the ex-athlete in the working class film, Dogtown (1997) a soon-to-be groom whose bachelor party goes horribly awry in the comedy thriller Very Bad Things (1998) a newlywed opposite Famke Janssen in Love & Sex (2000) a wild and crazy linebacker in The Replacements (2000); as Ben Affleck's legal partner in Daredevil (2003); and another down-and-out actor in The Big Empty (2003). He wrote and directed himself and Vaughn as two fellow boxers who involve themselves in criminal activity in Made (2001). Both he and Vaughn produced. He also directed the highly popular Will Ferrell comedy Elf (2003), in which he had a small part.

Jon team up with his friend, Vince Vaughn, who enjoyed a meteoric rise into the comedy star ranks, in such light-weight features as The Break-Up (2006), Four Christmases (2008) and Couples Retreat (2009), the last of which he co-wrote with Vaughn. He also made great strides as a producer/director in recent years with the exciting mega-box office action-packed Iron Man (2008), starring Robert Downey Jr. and its sequel, Iron Man 2 (2010).

Favreau's marriage to Joya Tillem on November 24, 2000, produced son Max and two daughters, Madeleine and Brighton Rose. Joya is the niece of KGO (AM) lawyer and talk show host, Len Tillem.