Glenn Beck is a unique character. With the nation's No. 3 national radio show, an up-and-coming television program on CNN Headline News and a life affected by tragedy and addictions, he's a natural for the live stage show he will bring to Kingsbury Hall next weekend.

The 42-year-old Beck strives to tell it like it is, and his shows include plenty of personal, candid conversation about his own life. "This is stand-up comedy with a message," Beck said by phone from his Southern California office.

In the show, he reviews how many things — for sure — he knew in life, and builds his humorous show around them.

Beck isn't a household word yet, like Hannity or Limbaugh, but he's working on that.

What will be of interest to many Utahns is that Beck is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a convert baptized in 1999.

He said he's hoping to add an extra 30 minutes to the end of his stage show to focus on his LDS conversion and experiences, an exclusive for the Salt Lake audience. At that point, he said, theatergoers will have the option of leaving or staying for that extra segment.

A former Top 40 disc jockey, Beck evolved into talk radio. He grew up in Mount Vernon, Wash., north of Seattle, and started his radio career at age 13. After high school he worked in Provo for six months at K-96 in the early 1980s and later at stations in Baltimore, Houston, Phoenix, Washington and Connecticut.

"I lived in Provo for six months" while on FM-96.1. That was in the days to the two "Scotts" — Scott Fisher and Scott Gentry in the mid-1980s.

At age 18, Beck "didn't fit in," so he left Provo for other radio pastures.

He is a self-described reformed alcoholic and drug addict. And there's more darkness in his past — his mother committed suicide when Beck was 13, and his brother also committed suicide.

In the aftermath of those two family tragedies, Beck said he used "Dr. Jack Daniels" to cope. That led to his alcoholism and drug use and also his divorce from his first wife.

Eventually, he realized this lifestyle would kill him, and so he talked with his father about it. "I only had two roads — kill myself or redeem myself."

Beck's father challenged him to make a list of all the bad things in his life. He said he then had a realization: "That nothing bad can happen to you that can't make you stronger. For years I chose to look at the bad things."