The son of travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux, he was born in Uganda before going to school in London.
After graduating from Oxford University, he decided to spend time in America with his older brother Marcel, who is also a writer.
Following in the family footsteps, Theroux become a journalist on the satirical magazine Spy in New York.
His television break came when he joined baseball cap-wearing Michael Moore on the TV Nation show, with the special role of interviewing the weird and wonderful.
Theroux joined the BBC in 1995 and embarked on a television journey which would see him travel to the corners of America in search of quirky characters.
The first series of Weird Weekends received critical acclaim as he found ever stranger folk to film.
Despite the controversial ideas of some of the people he tackles, more often than not they take him to their heart and open their homes to him.
Far-right extremists, swingers and female bodybuilders have also been put under the Theroux microscope.
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