Priest was born in New York City. His mother came to this country from Russia when she was nine years old. "Half my family is Russian Jews the other half is Bronx Jews," says John. "So I grew up hearing half my family telling me how they got chased by Cossacks and the other half telling me how they got chased by Yankee fans on bat day."

John spent his grammar school years at P.S. 87 on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. "The public school yard in New York City was just like any prison movie you've ever seen. The black kids hang out with the black kids, the Puerto Rican kids hang out with the Puerto Rican kids, and the three white kids are running for their lives." To protect himself, John began boxing at Gleason's Gym at the age of 15, and trained competitively for five years. But he was not destined to be the next Rocky Marciano--"I had no killer instinct. I was so scared, I just kept running away from the guy, thinking, I can't hit you, you're from low-income housing, you've got no dental plan. Hit me! I'm fully covered, Blue Cross Blue Shield." John did fight long enough to get knocked out--it was his first fight, and he got KO'd in the first round. "I didn't see the punch coming. People asked me afterwards, was it a right hand or a left hand, I thought it was a chair."

Following the fight, he went off to college in Boston. After graduating from Northeastern University with a degree in journalism, he got a job at a local newspaper writing obituaries. "It was a depressing job. I wanted to write about life, and all my main characters kept dying." Shortly after quitting that job, John began performing at local Boston comedy clubs and within a few years moved back to New York, where he quickly became a regular at such famous venues as Comic Strip Live and Catch A Rising Star. He currently has his own show at Carolines on Broadway. As an actor, John performed off-Broadway in Moliere's "The Flying Doctor" and "The Imaginary Cuckold." He has also appeared in productions of "The Seagull" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night" at the famed Actors Studio. John has recently been signed to do an independent film called "The Basketball Story".

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WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT JOHN PRIEST...