COLBERT, Stephen 1964-

PERSONAL: Born April 20, 1964, in Charleston, SC; married; children: a son and a daughter.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Agent—William Morris Agency, 151 El Camino Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90212.

CAREER: Actor, television writer and screenwriter, author, producer. Second City Improv theater, Chicago, IL, actor; Annoyance Theatre, Chicago, IL, actor; Exit 57 comedy series, HBO Downtown Productions, Comedy Central television, codeveloper, writer-performer, 1995; The Dana Carvey Show, ABC Television, writer-performer, 1996; Spin City, ABC Television, guest appearance as "Frank" in episode "The Competition," 1996; The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, writer-performer, correspondent, 1997—; The Daily Show Year-End Spectacular '98, performer, 1998; Stephen Colbert across America, Comedy Central television, performer, 1998; Strangers with Candy television series, Comedy Central television, creator and coproducer, appeared as "Mr. Chuck Noblet," 1999, 2004; Whose Line Is It Anyway? series, ABC Television, appeared as himself, 1999; The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Indecision 2000, writer-performer, 2000; Snow Days (film, new title Let It Snow), appeared as "Happy successful guy," 2001; Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law Cartoon Network television series, voice of "Reducto," "Phil Ken Sebben," 2001—; Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn television series, regular guest appearances, 2002; Crank Yankers television series, voice of "Rob," 2002; Uncensored Comedy: That's Not Funny television special, appeared as himself, 2003. Writer for comedy series Saturday Night Live; cocreator of cartoon The Ambiguously Gay Duo and voice of "Ace."

AWARDS, HONORS: Five CableACE nominations for best writing, best performing, and best comedy series, 1995, for Exit 57; Peabody Award for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

WRITINGS:

(With Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello) Wigfield: TheCan-Do Town That Just May Not, with photographs by Todd Oldham, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2003.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A "Strangers with Candy" film.

SIDELIGHTS: Comedy writer, actor, and producer Stephen Colbert teamed up with the coauthors of his first book, Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not, when Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello shared the limelight with him at Chicago's Second City Improv theater in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The threesome continued to collaborate after Second City, developing the television series Exit 57 and Strangers with Candy. Colbert has won fame as a writer and "correspondent" on the television news spoof The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and has worked on numerous other projects for television and film.

Wigfield is a satirical novel featuring highway-line-painter turned journalist Russell Hokes, who gets a publisher's advance to write a book about the disappearance of the American small town. After spending the advance on a nationwide road trip, Hokes chooses the subject for his book when his car breaks down in Wigfield, a quarter-mile strip of pornographic shops, used auto parts yards, taxidermists, and strip clubs with three mayors and a pyromaniac police chief. These "townsfolk" have established their shantytown to collect government relocation money when the nearby dam—built by a crooked politician—is destroyed to protect the salmon run. Hokes's interviews with the townsfolk, conducted in search of something worth saving in Wigfield, make up the novel's hilarious plot. Colbert, Sedaris, and Dinello, dressed as the Wigfield "townies," posed for Todd Oldham's photographs for the book.

Steve Wilson, in a review of Wigfield for Book, described the book as a marriage of "skit comedy and prose-centric mirth." Noel Murray, writing for the Onion A.V. Club, said Hokes tells the Wigfield residents' stories "in the style of pompous, ill-informed boobery familiar to fans of The Daily Show's satirical reportage." Tony Catalano, in a review for the Green Bay Press-Gazette Online, called Wigfield "brilliantly written and extremely funny." A Film Force contributor described it as "somewhat disturbing" and "completely hilarious."

A Publishers Weekly contributor noted that the book combines "creative form, uproariously funny text and a painfully sharp underpinning of social criticism." A writer for the Hyperion Books Web site dubbed Wigfield "a razor-sharp satire by three major talents." Teresa DiFalco, in a review for Pop Matters, called it "more souped-up playbill than book," and said, "These characters are dying for a stage." She said the authors' promotional tour, billed as "more than a reading, less than a play," showed marketing genius and that Wigfield also shows promise as a film.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Book, May-June, 2003, Steve Wilson, review of Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not, p. 76.

Entertainment Weekly, June 28, 2002, Scott Brown, "Getting It & Losing It: Who's Rising, Who's Rebounding, and a Few Who Should Hang It Up," p. 54.

Publishers Weekly, April 28, 2003, review of Wigfield, p. 46.

ONLINE

Comedy Central Web site,http://www.comedycentral.com/ (October 26, 2003), "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Stephen Colbert."

Film Force,http://filmforce.ign.com/ (June 25, 2003), "10 Questions: Stephen Colbert."

Green Bay Press-Gazette Online,http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/ (September 26, 2003), Tony Catalano, "Teen Review: Book Wigfield Is Great for Anyone Who Loves to Laugh."

Internet Movie Database,http://www.imdb.com/ (October 26, 2003), "Stephen Colbert."

Old Camel Toe,http://oldcameltoe.com/ (July 26, 2003), Rekutyn, review of Wigfield.

Onion A.V. Club,http://www.theonionavclub.com/ (May 7, 2003), Noel Murray, review of Wigfield

Pop Matters,http://www.popmatters.com/ (August 6, 2003), Teresa DiFalco, review of Wigfield

"Wigfield" Home Page,http://www.wigfield.com/ (October 26, 2003), "Creators."*