Stephen Colbert

He describes himself as a Democrat, is a practicing Roman Catholic and a Sunday school teacher and has the honor of having a treadmill used in space named after him by the NASA.

Stephen Colbert was born in Washington D.C. to Lorna and James William Colbert, Jr. He was the youngest of the eleven siblings, James, Edward, Mary, William, Margo, Thomas, Jay, Elizabeth, Paul, Peter, and Stephen.

Lorna was a homemaker while James was a doctor and medical school dean at Yale University, and later Washington University and the vice president for academic affairs at the Medical University of South Carolina.

In 1974, when he was 10, his father and two brothers were killed in an air crash. His mother relocated the family to Charleston, where he attended the Episcopal Porter –Gaud School.

He joined the Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia to study philosophy but found the curriculum tough. He transferred to Northwestern University to major in theatre and graduated with a degree in 1986.

Offered work at Second City’ box office, he joined their free improvisation classes, was hired to perform with their touring company in 1988 and became close friends with comedians Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello

He left Second City in 1995, and shifted to New York to work with Sedaris and Dinello to create, ‘Exit 57’, a television comedy show. The series though favorably reviewed, lasted only 12 episodes.

He worked as a cast member and writer on ‘The Dana Carvey Show’, in 1996, along with Steve Carell, Robert Smigel, and Dino Stamatopoulos, but the series was cancelled as the satire was distasteful.

Working for ‘Good Morning America’, only one of his humorous correspondent segments was aired but he got hired by Madeline Smithberg, the producer of The Daily Show on a trial basis in 1997.

He, along with Sedaris and Dinello worked on a new comedy serial, Strangers with Candy, for Comedy Central. Characterized as a cult show, its 32 episodes were aired between 1999 and 2000.

Colbert joined Comedy Central’s parody news series, The Daily Show, in 1997. It tries to expose the ignorance of well-intentioned news anchors and celebrities, and has 1.45 to 1.6 million viewers nightly.

Since 2005, he has hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, parodies TV news broadcasting. It enjoys favorable reviews, with 65/100 on Metacritic, its viewers ranking on the site is 8.7/10.