Farrelly Filmography
		1994: Dumb and Dumber Who: Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels, Lauren Holly
	What: Two dimwitted buddies take a road trip to Aspen to return a suitcase to a high-society woman.
		1996: Kingpin Who: Woody Harrelson, Randy Quaid, and Bill Murray
	What: A one-handed bowling con man and his Amish sidekick.
		1998: There’s Something About Mary Who: Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, and Matt Dillon
	What: Ted can’t get his high school crush Mary off his mind, so he hires a PI to track her down.
		1999: Outside Providence Who: Alec Baldwin
	What: Coming-of-age story based on Peter Farrelly’s novel of the same name.
		2000: Me, Myself & Irene Who: Jim Carrey, Renee Zellweger
	What: Schizophrenic state trooper’s good and evil sides both fall in love with Irene.
		2001: Osmosis Jones Who: Bill Murray, Molly Shannon, Chris Elliott and the voices of Chris Rock, Laurence Fishburne and David Hyde Pierce
	What: Combination of live action and animation. Animation takes place inside the body of Frank.
		2001: Shallow Hal Who: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jack Black, Jason Alexander
	What: When a spell is put on a guy who chases pretty women, he falls for an obese woman’s inner beauty.

The Farrelly brothers grew up in Cumberland, R.I., with three sisters, their physician father, “Docky,” and mother Mariann, a nurse. The family was close and remains so today. In fact, no Farrelly brothers’ movie is complete without an appearance by Docky and Mariann, not to mention sisters, children, nieces, nephews, friends, and old college buddies.

Both parents believed in the importance of education; their strict rules set regular study hours and banned TV on school nights. The three sisters brought home As and Bs; the brothers, however…

“We were classic underachievers,” Farrelly says. Hoping to get the boys on the straight and narrow, their parents sent them to private schools (Peter to the Kent School in Connecticut and Bobby to Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., where he played hockey). Though both graduated, neither brother was anywhere near the top of his class.

It was hockey that led Farrelly to Rensselaer. “I’ll admit, the hockey program is probably what interested me more than the curriculum going in. But I knew it was a good school,” he says. He entered on a hockey scholarship as a goalie, but in the end he saw little ice time.

Teammate Dino Macaluso ’82 recalls Farrelly as “always a little crazy. I remember we watched a lot of Three Stooges together, and we laughed a lot,” Macaluso says. The two rekindled their friendship a few years ago, and Farrelly invited Macaluso to the set of Me, Myself & Irene as an extra.

A whole day on set resulted in less than 30 seconds of Macaluso on screen. (“Hey, I fought for those 30 seconds!” Farrelly insists.)

Off the ice at Rensselaer Farrelly majored in geology, a field he has “never used one day in my life. It helps me when the category comes up on Jeopardy!, though.”

He chose the major because a job in the oil industry “sounded interesting,” but by the time he graduated, “all the oil stuff had gone to hell in a handbasket, and there were no jobs.” Farrelly started work on an MBA, but after a year decided to leave school and enter the financial services business.

“I sold insurance, life insurance, some investment products, and I even became a registered stockbroker. But, I was just telling people what the companies wanted me to tell them, because I didn’t have any experience with what to do with money. I didn’t have any!”

Me, Myself, and Willie

The world just might have Willie Stanton to thank for the Farrelly brothers’ success.

Stanton, known to generations as “Mr. RPI,” worked in the Union kitchen and befriended countless students. He was a familiar face at campus social and sporting events, and in particular was a friend and supporter of the hockey team. During Farrelly’s undergraduate years, Stanton acted like a father figure to many on the hockey team.

“I knew him, but wasn’t particularly close to him,” Farrelly recalls. Stanton died in 1980.

A few years after graduation, Farrelly says he fell asleep on the couch after a long day selling insurance and began to dream. In his dream, he woke up and saw Willie Stanton walking up his driveway. “I couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound. He came right up to my front door, and said, ‘I just wanted to tell you to analyze your life. You’re not doing the right thing with your life. I just want you to think about that.’ And then he turned and walked out the door.

“I’d never had a dream like that, and haven’t since. It really rattled me,” Farrelly says. “I know it was probably my subconscious talking to me, ’cause I knew I didn’t like what I was doing. But it changed my life. It really did.”