Colbert, Stephen

Stephen Colbert was born in Washington and raised in Charleston , South Carolina , in the family of a doctor, being the youngest of eleven children. In an interview, Colbert described his parents as devout and at the same time highly valued intelligence people. They were taught in the family that it was possible to question the church, but still remain Catholics ^[6] . The emphasis that his family attached to the intelligence and negative stereotypes associated with the inhabitants of the southern states, led to the fact that Colbert learned to restrain his southern accent at a young age. He noted that southerners are often portrayed as less intelligent, and to avoid such stereotypes, he learned to imitate the manner of leading television ^[7] .

His father died in 1974 with his two sons Peter and Paul in a plane crash ^[8] . Stephen studied at Porter Gaud School, Hampden-Sydney College, and School of Speech and Communication at Northwestern University , where he attended acting classes.

In his youth, Colbert dreamed of studying marine biology , however, during an operation to restore the eardrum, his inner ear was damaged, because of which he could not be submerged. This operation also left him deaf in his right ear ^[9] .

Colbert came to The Daily Show in 1997 when the second season of the program was on. In 1999, John Stuart came as the host. At the same time, the program gradually acquired a more politicized tone, especially before the 2000 elections . Unlike John Stewart, who essentially transmits as himself, Colbert played a fictional character, also called "Stephen Colbert."

Since October 2005, Colbert began conducting his own show The Colbert Report , where Colbert plays the role of the same character as in The Daily Show . In terms of format, this is a news broadcast that is a parody of the shows of such presenters as Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly . In April 2014, it became known that Colbert will replace David Letterman at the site of the host of The Late Show ^[10] . The latest issue of The Colbert Report took place on December 18, 2014. September 1, 2015 on the CBS channel, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert successfully launched; For the first week the transfer rating increased by 24%.

2008 US Presidential Application

On October 16, 2007, Colbert announced his intention to run as a candidate for the presidency of the United States in 2008 ^{[11] [12]} .

One of his scandalous statements was:

If I become president, I will wipe Georgia off the face of the earth. We have more peaches and are juicier than in Georgia.

Original text

I promise, if elected, I will crush the state of Georgia. Our peaches are more numerous than Georgia's, they are more juiciful.

- S. Colbert, October 2007, University of South Carolina ^[12]

In the shortest time, more than a million Americans spoke in support of him, thereby showing their willingness to vote against favorites.

On November 1, 2007, the Democratic Party of South Carolina voted against accepting him ^[13] . A few days later, Colbert announced the end of his campaign.

Despite this, Joe Quesada said in an interview with The Colbert Report that his position as a candidate is still strong in the Marvel universe .

In one of the first issues of The Colbert Report , Colbert used the coined word Truthiness , which later became the word of the year 2005 ^[14] .

In the spring of 2006, Time magazine ranked Stephen Colbert as one of the hundred most influential people of the year ^[15] . On April 29, 2006, Colbert spoke at the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents' Association , after giving a satirical speech in which he sharply criticized the government of George W. Bush and the president himself ^[16] . His speech caused a lot of reviews in the media. Video recording of speech for at least five months remained in first place in the ranking of the most downloaded videos on the iTunes Store ^[17] .

In early 2009, Stephen encouraged viewers on his TV show to vote in a NASA online poll on how to best name the new International Space Station module. Stephen suggested calling him by his last name - COLBERT ^[18] . Despite the fact that he won, the module was named Tranquility ^[19] , but a few months later, a sports simulator for the International Space Station, delivered to it and installed in the fall of 2009 ^[20], was named after Stephen.

After the embarrassment of Mitt Romney’s team in the 2012 US presidential election campaign , Colbert publicly performed “Amercia, Amercia ...” in the famous patriotic song “ America the Beautiful ” ^{[21] [22]} .

According to him, he was not very interested in politics before joining The Daily Show . In a 2004 interview, he said that he considers himself a supporter of the Democrats ^[23] . Colbert practices Catholicism and teaches at Sunday School ^[24] .

Colbert is married to Evelyn McGee-Colbert ( Eng. Evelyn McGee-Colbert ), has three children. At the same time, Colbert prefers that his children do not watch The Colbert Report , because he believes that the children do not understand sarcasm, and he would not want them to consider him insincere ^[25] .

Rewards

• 2004 - Emmy for the scripts for The Daily Show
• 2005 - Emmy for the scripts for The Daily Show
• 2006 - Emmy for scripts for The Daily Show
• 2007 - Orator of the Year (Cross Examination Debate Association, CEDA)
• 2008 - "Person of the Year" according to the Webby Prize ^[26]

Other

In 2008 , Professor Jason Bond named the new spider species Aptostichus stephencolberti in honor of Stephen Colbert ^{[27] [28]} .

Professor Bill P. Stark named the species of spring grass Diamphipnoa colberti opened in 2008 in honor of Colbert ^[29] .

American entomologists Quentin Wheeler and Kelly B. Miller named Agaporomorphus colberti a new species of swimming beetles in honor of the actor ^[30] and timed this event to his 45th birthday ^{[31] [32]} .

In 2014, one of the new open species of the Braconid subfamily - Aleiodes colberti also received a name in honor of Stephen Colbert ^[33] .

In 2016, entomologist Michael Ferro from Clemson University named after Colbert a new species of Sonoma colberti beetles belonging to the North American genus Sonoma , which is part of the Staphylinidae family ^[34] .

•   Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stephen Colbert
• The Colbert Report Official Transmission Website
• Stephen Colbert at the Internet Movie Database
• Stephen Colbert on Twitter