Stephen Colbert

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Image:Colbert.JPG Stephen Colbert (Template:IPA; born May 13, 1964) is an American deadpan comedian, most famous for his work as a correspondent and writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, and as a producer and the host of The Colbert Report, a spin-off of The Daily Show parodying personality-driven news and opinion shows, especially Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor.

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Personal life

Colbert was raised in Charleston, South Carolina in a Roman Catholic family, the youngest of eleven children. Colbert's father, who was a doctor, and two of his older brothers, died in a plane crash when Colbert was 10 years old.[1] [2]

Colbert is well-known for being a Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons fan, a fascination that began in high school. [3] [4]

He attended Charleston's exclusive Episcopalian Porter-Gaud School. He was formally educated at Northwestern University's School of Speech, to which he transferred from Hampden-Sydney College. At Northwestern, he took acting classes, influenced by his mother, a love of Bill Cosby, and the much less conservative atmosphere compared to Hampden-Sydney. While there, he became involved in the improvisation troupe ImprovOlympic. After college, he went to work at Second City and participated in improv classes there.[5]

He is married to Evelyn McGee-Colbert, who appeared with Colbert in Strangers with Candy. She played a nurse (uncredited) in the series pilot as well. The couple has three children, all of whom have appeared on The Daily Show.

Although not particularly political before joining The Daily Show, Colbert is a self-described Democrat.[6] Colbert claimed that Bill O'Reilly called for a boycott of The Colbert Report, because he thought Colbert was FrenchTemplate:Fact; however, Colbert is Irish-American and his surname is Irish (of Norman origin)Template:Fact.

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Career in comedy

Colbert is also an alumnus of The Second City and had a short stint on Good Morning America. He was formerly a performer and writer on Exit 57 as well as Strangers with Candy, where he also held executive producer credit. Briefly, he served as a writer for Saturday Night Live, where he later returned to voice the character Ace in Robert Smigel's The Ambiguously Gay Duo (the other member of the duo, Gary, was voiced by fellow Daily Show alumnus Steve Carell). He was a cast member and writer on The Dana Carvey Show. He also regularly performs as a voice actor on Cartoon Network's Harvey Birdman (part of the Adult Swim lineup), appeared on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and appeared in the Mr. Goodwrench commercials for General Motors. He coauthored the novel Wigfield with ex-Strangers With Candy costars Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello. He has provided voices for Comedy Central's Crank Yankers.

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Colbert on The Daily Show

Some memorable segments he has appeared in for The Daily Show have included "Even Stephen" with Steve Carell, and "This Week in God." Memorable reports include the 2001 "break-up" of the Republicans "Singing Senators" following the defection of Jim Jeffords, and the report on Prince Charles and the British media reporting of royal family scandals through suggestive innuendo. In a few episodes of The Daily Show, Colbert has sat in the anchor's chair in the place of Stewart while the latter was dealing with other matters. From March 3 to 7, 2002, Colbert hosted several episodes of The Daily Show because Stewart was scheduled to host Saturday Night Live that weekend. Since Colbert left the show, the duty of filling in for Stewart has been assumed by Rob Corddry. On one occasion, guest interviewee Al Sharpton didn't show, so Colbert filled in as Sharpton ([7] #19).

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Other roles

The trademark of his voicework in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law (as Phil Ken Sebben, founder of the law firm of Sebben & Sebben, among others) is a "Ha, ha!" followed by a phrase relevant to the scene. (For example, on the subject of cookie bouquets: "Ha, ha! Cookies on dowels!")

'Stephen Colbert also puts in an excited effort playing numerous roles, such as Birdman's hypersexual boss Phil and the size-obsessed attorney Reducto. According to one commentary, he literally ran around the recording studio shouting his lines.'[8]

Colbert appeared in the big screen adaptation of Bewitched. He also starred as a forgery expert and murderer in an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent and an annoying tourist going to see The Producers on Broadway in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Colbert co-wrote, and has a starring role in, the sitcom Strangers with Candy.

Colbert is scheduled as commencement speaker for the class of 2006 at Knox College.

At the 78th Academy Awards, several comedic video clips were played in the fashion of "The Daily Show" that were narrated by Colbert. Most of the clips were parodies of political attack ads, with the topics being the award categories and nominees. For example, one clip accused actress Judi Dench, nominated for an Oscar award, of "not being a dame".

Colbert portrayed the letter Z in Sesame Street: All-Star Alphabet, a 2005 video release, opposite Nicole Sullivan as the letter A.

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The Colbert Report

Since October 17, 2005, Colbert has produced and hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, a parody of celebrity anchor news commentary shows like The O'Reilly Factor and Scarborough Country. Colbert performs the entire show in the character of a blustery, right-wing blowhard pundit. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for The Colbert Report within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows.

In January 2006, the American Dialect Society named as its 2005 Word of the Year: "truthiness," which Colbert introduced on the premiere episode of the Report. Colbert devoted time on five successive episodes to bemoaning the failure of the Associated Press to mention his role in popularizing the word "truthiness" in its news coverage of the Word of the Year, despite the American Dialect Society giving him the credit.

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Trivia

Colbert was an avid fantasy RPG player as an adolescent, to which he partly attributes his interest in acting. He was known to be an enthusiast of the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons. He is also a Lord of the Rings fanatic. When Viggo Mortensen appeared on The Daily Show, a sound-clip was played of Colbert reciting the detailed lineage of Mortensen's character, Aragorn. To reciprocate, Mortensen sent Colbert a platter of Lord of the Rings characters molded in chocolate. Stewart quipped that the gift would give Colbert a "four-hour erection."

Colbert is deaf in his right ear. "I had this weird tumor as a kid, and they scooped it out with a melon baller."[9] On March 16, 2006, Colbert featured a review from Orlando Sentinel columnist Commander Coconut in his "Who's Attacking Me Now?" segment. The review stated that Coconut was unable to pay attention to anything but Colbert's ears, as his right one sticks out slightly. In a call to Coconut regarding the review, Colbert stated that the doctor also noticed it stuck out slightly when he pulled the tumor out. Colbert continued his diatribe for several minutes to the growing mortification of Coconut. After the replay of the phone conversation, however, Colbert stated that he had not in fact had a tumor in his ear.

On March 2, 2006, Colbert used his "The Da Colbert Code" (a parody of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code), a series of bizarrely random word associations, to accurately predict the Oscar winners for five major awards: Philip Seymour Hoffman for Best Actor; Reese Witherspoon for Best Actress; George Clooney for Best Supporting Actor; Rachel Weisz for Best Supporting Actress, and even the underdog Crash for Best Picture (he had gotten as far as "Space Mountain," but couldn't go from there - "something-something Mountain..."). The following show, on March 6, 2006, was marked by Colbert's proclamation that "I called it!", complete with a surfeit of balloons raining down from the ceiling. [10]

On March 29, 2006, Colbert announced that he "would be a father... of a baby eagle." He went on to detail how the San Francisco Zoo sent him an e-mail that asked if the zoo could name a yet-to-hatch bald eagle after him. Colbert "picked" an egg (calling it Stephen Jr.), then sent the eagle its first meal by eating half a hot dog, chewing it, and spitting it into a FedEx envelope, requesting it be sent "first class". Stephen Jr. was born April 17, 2006.

Colbert also regularly references bears on his show, although his depiction of the animals is ambivalent at best.

On April 18, 2006 Colbert welcomed ACLU executive director Anthony Romero as a guest, claiming he lured his guest to the show by pretending to be a "poor gay latino flag burning Nazi". Stephen was given an ACLU membership card by Romero during the show, but in committment to his right wing character he did not take it from his guest on camera.

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External links

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