Ron White to light up cigars, IU Auditorium

Ron White didn’t know his first joke would be funny. It was at a family get-together. He was told a knock-knock joke by somebody there, and he repeated it to his parents.

He didn’t understand it.

All he knew was it made everyone laugh.

And at the age of 4, Ron White’s career as a comedian began.

“It was just a simple knock-knock joke,” White said. “But it killed.”

On Thursday, White’s jokes will advance beyond knock-knocks for his show “Moral Compass” at 8 p.m. at the IU Auditorium.

White began stand-up in the late 1980s after he came back from the Navy.

"I thought I was successful even when I wasn’t successful,” he said. “I felt
successful. My goal was to headline comedy clubs ’til I died.”

His comedy career took off in 2000 when he performed with Bill Engvall, Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy in the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. White and the Blue Collar crew grossed more than $15 million.

By 2010, he had an appearance in Sex and the City 2, a Grammy nomination for “You Can’t Fix Stupid” and a Gold record. However, none of those are his biggest accomplishment.

“Oh, it’s probably landing my wife,” White said.

He met his singer-songwriter wife, Margo Rey, 23 years ago. He had just started in stand-up and the headliner, Alex Reymundo, asked if White wanted to see Reymundo’s sister perform in her all-girl band.

“No, I really don’t,” White had said.

“So, we went anyways and we walked in and she was really hot,” he said. “She’s on her knees in a little miniskirt and she’s just beltin’ out this rock song ... And I thought, ‘Well that’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’”

The couple recently got married.

“And that’s the way I operate when I see somethin’ I like,” White said. “Twenty years later, I ask her brother for her phone number to make a move. Slick. You don’t even see me comin’.”

White’s last stop in Bloomington was in 2008. But the comedian, known for his signature cigar and glass of Scotch, has yet to hit up Kirkwood.

“I really am looking forward to coming in,” he said with a laugh. “And to go drinking down on your booze street.”