Stephen Colbert: Beyond Truthiness Read Free Page A

out. Instead, he chose the ultra-conservative, all-male Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. The oldest private college in the South, it was as stilted as its motto: “Come here as boys so you may leave as men.” Hampden-Sydney’s football team, fraternities, and nineteenth-century curriculum gave Colbert insight into the mainstream American values he now so sarcastically champions, but he hated his two years there.
    “It was a ‘playtime’s over’ kind of place,” he recalled. Sullen and depressed, he lost fifty pounds and sank into “belated grieving.” He found an outlet by acting in plays. One was the darkly comic and oddly titled, Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad. Colbert remembered thinking, “This is for me. Dark farce.” Serious about acting, he even did a nude scene at the Spoleto Festival. At the request of Ken Russell, the controversial director of Women in Love and other films, he stood alone on stage naked in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly . Someone so dedicated to acting did not belong at a strict, southern men’s college. So, as he approached his junior year, Colbert began looking for theater schools. Among the best, he learned, was Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Colbert applied and was accepted.
    Like Hampden-Sydney, Northwestern had football and fraternities, but it was also just a short “L” train ride from Chicago where a young wit could watch seasoned pros stretch themselves on the rack of comedy improvisation. Though he came north to become a dramatic actor, it would be in improv’s fantasy world - lightning fast, unpredictable, and as combative as anything out of Tolkien - that the southern Catholic Stephen Colbert would make his name. And that name would differ from the family moniker.
    On the plane to Chicago, Colbert decided to soften his surname. Bumped up to first class, he struck up a conversation with his seatmate, an astronaut. He told the man he was on his way to a new school, a new life. “Oh, wow!” the astronaut said, “you could really reinvent yourself out there.” “When the plane took off I was Colbert,” Stephen recalled, “and when the plane landed, I was Colbear.” Forever after, the “t” would be silent, but it would take years before the man who made it that way learned to speak from his gut.

 

    “Attack life, it’s going to kill you anyway.”
    Every member of Colbert Nation has a favorite interview. There was the time Colbert flattered Fox News’ loudmouth Bill O’Reilly by telling him, “I’m living your book,” then held up a copy with a discount sticker over O’Reilly’s face. Then there was the time Colbert puzzled children’s author Maurice Sendak by suggesting a sequel to Where the Wild Things Are . Subtitled Still Wilding , the book would star Vin Diesel, with tie-ins to Burger King or Taco Bell. And then there was the time Colbert challenged rock-star Jack White to a “Catholic Throwdown” in which the two stumbled through hymns, debated dogma, and posed “gotcha” questions about obscure saints.
    COLBERT: “Who’s the patron saint of ummm . . . clowns?”
    WHITE: “Who’s the patron saint of clowns? Maybe Saint Joseph?”
    COLBERT: “St. Genesius!”
    WHITE: “Really? I don’t think that’s a real saint.”
    Most news/talk shows use interviews as a tired, but time-tested ritual. Don’t have much to say? Get a guest without much to say. But in Colbert’s hands, interviews are adventures, and may St. Genesius - who is, in fact, the Catholic patron saint of clowns - help any guest who walks blindly into a Stephen Colbert interview. One of the first was Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler in 2006. Proudly representing Florida’s 19th District in The Colbert Report segment, “Better Know a District,” Wexler began by boasting about his constituents. He looked forward to softball questions, but Colbert became Colbert. First, he suggested drilling for oil off the