Stephen Colbert

Stephen Tyrone Colbert, born May 13, 1964, is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He came of age as television comedy was becoming one of the main places Americans argued with the news, politics, and public speech. Colbert became one of its sharpest figures, first through parody and later through late-night conversation. He is best known for hosting Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report from 2005 to 2014, and CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert from 2015 to 2026.

Colbert was born in Washington, D.C., the youngest of eleven children in a Catholic family, and was raised in South Carolina after living for a few years in Bethesda, Maryland. His father, James William Colbert Jr., was an immunologist and medical school dean, and his mother, Lorna Elizabeth Colbert, was a homemaker. Colbert has described his parents as devout but deeply intellectual, people who taught their children that one could question the Church and still be Catholic. His father was interested in French humanist writers such as Léon Bloy and Jacques Maritain, while his mother admired Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement.

His childhood was marked by loss. On September 11, 1974, when Colbert was ten, his father and his brothers Paul and Peter died in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 while it was attempting to land in Charlotte, North Carolina. Colbert later spoke about the effect of that tragedy on his thinking about grief and suffering. Afterward, his mother moved the family from James Island to downtown Charleston, where she ran a carriage house as a bed and breakfast. Colbert has said he became detached during that period, and he found comfort in science fiction and fantasy, especially J. R. R. Tolkien. He also developed a strong interest in Dungeons & Dragons, which he later described as an early form of acting and improvisation.

Before comedy became his public life, Colbert studied to be a dramatic actor. At Northwestern University he grew interested in improvisational theater and met Second City director Del Close. He first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago. In that circle he worked with Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, with whom he later developed the sketch comedy series Exit 57. He also performed on and wrote for The Dana Carvey Show in 1996, then collaborated again with Sedaris and Dinello on the sitcom Strangers with Candy from 1999 to 2000.

Colbert gained wide recognition as a correspondent on Comedy Central’s news-parody series The Daily Show. In 2005 he left to host The Colbert Report, a parody of personality-driven political opinion shows, including The O’Reilly Factor. On its first episode he introduced the word “truthiness,” later named Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society and Merriam-Webster. The show helped make him one of Comedy Central’s highest-rated figures, brought him to the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner as featured entertainer, and led to later public satire such as the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear with Jon Stewart and the 2011 Colbert Super PAC. With eleven Primetime Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, three Peabody Awards, and a No. 1 New York Times best seller in I Am America (And So Can You!), Colbert’s words still carry because they turn public performance back on itself, asking audiences to hear not only what is said, but how and why it is being said.