Curated category
American male 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 Smith walked out of a cinema on his 21st birthday with a decision made. The film was Richard Linklater's Slacker, shot in Austin, Texas without a…
- Johnny CarsonJohnny Carson stepped in front of a camera for the last time as host of The Tonight Show on the 22nd of May 1992, and three decades of American nights ended.
- Stephen ColbertStephen Colbert walked to the podium at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, stood a few yards from President George W.
- Jim HensonJim Henson made his first Kermit the Frog from a halved table tennis ball and fabric cut from an old coat that belonged to his mother.
- Ryan ReynoldsRyan Rodney Reynolds chose not to get paid for Deadpool to make sure the film would actually get made. That detail, small as it sounds, tells you almost…
- Buster KeatonBuster Keaton never smiled on screen. Not when a two-ton building facade toppled directly onto him, leaving only the gap of an open window between his body…
- 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.
- Frank ZappaFrank Vincent Zappa was born on the 21st of December, 1940, in Baltimore, Maryland, into a household where Italian was spoken by his grandparents and gas…
- 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 FavreauJon Favreau grew up in Flushing, Queens, the only child of a schoolteacher mother who died of leukemia when he was just twelve years old.