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Curated category

21st-century American comedians

  • Woody AllenWoody Allen has made 50 feature films. That single fact sits at the center of a career so long and so productive it resists easy summary.
  • Kevin SmithKevin Patrick Smith was born on the 2nd of August 1970, in Red Bank, New Jersey. He grew up in the nearby clamming town of Highlands as the son of Grace and…
  • Stephen ColbertStephen Colbert walked to the podium at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, stood a few yards from President George W.
  • Queen LatifahQueen Latifah chose her name at age eight, pulling it from a book of Arabic names. The word latifah means "delicate" and "very kind", but Dana Elaine Owens…
  • Robert Downey Jr.Robert Downey Jr. was born on the 4th of April 1965 in Manhattan, into a world already saturated with film sets and controlled substances.
  • David LettermanDavid Michael Letterman was born on the 12th of April 1947, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and over the next six decades he would reshape what American late-night…
  • Conan O'BrienConan Christopher O'Brien was born on the 18th of April 1963, in Brookline, Massachusetts, into a family defined by high achievers.
  • Julia Louis-DreyfusJulia Louis-Dreyfus has won more Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Awards than any other performer in the history of television.
  • Robin WilliamsRobin McLaurin Williams was voted "Most Likely Not to Succeed" by his high school classmates in 1969. Within a decade, he was on the cover of Time magazine…
  • Donald GloverDonald McKinley Glover Jr. was voted "Most Likely to Write for The Simpsons" in his high school yearbook at Stephenson High School in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
  • Lorne MichaelsLorne Michaels once offered The Beatles $3,000 to reunite on live television. He made the offer in front of a studio audience, on a brand-new NBC show…
  • Kelsey GrammerKelsey Grammer was born on the 21st of February 1955 in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, a place he would later describe simply as home, calling himself "a…
  • Bruce VilanchBruce Vilanch is the man behind the jokes you heard at the Oscars for a quarter century. His name never appeared on the screen during those telecast moments…
  • Jon FavreauJonathan Kolia Favreau was born in Flushing, Queens, New York, on the 19th of October 1966. He grew up as the only child of Madeleine, an elementary school…