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| Birth Name(s) : Conan O'Brien |
Date of Birth: N/A |
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Single
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| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Conan O'Brien Biography
Conan Christopher O'Brien (born April 18, 1963) is an Emmy-winning American comedian, writer and television personality best known as host of NBC's late-night talk/variety show Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
Conan was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts, to Ruthe Reardon, an attorney, and Thomas Francis O’Brien, M.D. He has 5 siblings: Neal O'Brien (b. 1960); Luke O'Brien (attorney, b. 1961); Kate O'Brien (teacher, b. 1965); Jane O'Brien (writer-producer, Futurama, b. 1967); and Justin O'Brien (businessman, b. 1972). Denis Leary is his third cousin.
O'Brien excelled at English; he served as managing editor of his school newspaper and interned for Rep. Barney Frank.
After graduating from the Brookline High School as valedictorian, O'Brien entered Harvard University and, in his three upper-class years, lived in Mather House. Throughout his college career, he was a writer for the Harvard Lampoon humor magazine. During his sophomore and junior years, O'Brien served as the Lampoon's president, making him only the second person ever to serve as president twice, and the first person to have done it in 85 years. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1985 with a B.A. in History and Literature.
While attending Harvard, O'Brien was roommates with Damon Krukowski, who later became drummer for the indie band Galaxie 500. O'Brien had previously bought himself a drumkit, but had only recently given up playing it and instead earned his talent in playing the acoustic guitar. He lent his drumkit to Krukowski, whom he knew would get more use out of it. O'Brien's drum kit can be heard on many of Galaxie 500's early recordings.
In January 1988, Saturday Night Live's executive producer Lorne Michaels hired O'Brien as a writer. During his 3 years on SNL he wrote such recurring sketches as "Mr. Short-Term Memory" and "The Girl Watchers," the latter of which was first performed by Tom Hanks and Jon Lovitz. O'Brien also co-wrote the sketch "Nude Beach" with Robert Smigel, a sketch in which the word "penis" was said or sung at least 42 times.
From 1991 to 1994, O'Brien was a writer and producer for The Simpsons, credited as writer or cowriter of four episodes Of all the episodes he wrote while writing for The Simpsons, he considers "Marge vs. the Monorail" to be his favorite. Years later, in his speech given at Class Day at Harvard in 2000, O'Brien credited The Simpsons with "saving" him, a reference to the career slump he was experiencing prior to his hiring for that show. As of 2004, Conan's office at The Simpsons was being used as storage.
On April 25, 1993, Lorne Michaels suggested O'Brien try out to be David Letterman's successor as host of Late Night with David Letterman, with Andy Richter signed on to be his sidekick. Conan auditioned on the set of The Tonight Show, where he interviewed Mimi Rogers and Jason Alexander. O'Brien resigned his position on The Simpsons, despite the fact that his contract had not expired.
In 2001, he formed his own television production company, Conaco, which has since shared in the production credits for Late Night.
On the first episode after September 11th, O'Brien went out of character and told a story of how he went to pray for the first time in eight years, the previous time was after he was announced as the host of Late Night. O'Brien was reported to have been shaken up and talked about a need to have faith.
After meeting Finnish actor/director Lauri Nurkse on October 11, 2005, O'Brien discovered that he was popular in Finland, and began a long running joke that he resembles the first female President of Finland, Tarja Halonen. After joking about this for several months (which led to the reoccurring segment "Conan O'Brien Hates My Homeland" and his highly advantageous endorsement of her campaign ), O'Brien traveled to Finland and appeared on several television shows, and met President Halonen. The trip was filmed and aired as a special.
In 2004, Conan was named as Jay Leno's replacement when he leaves the "Tonight Show" in 2009. Leno stated on the show that he wanted to avoid a repeat of the controversy and hard feelings that resulted when he was chosen by NBC to host the Tonight Show over David Letterman.
On March 7, 2006, NBC announced that it had ordered a pilot episode for Andy Barker P.I., a new comedy which O'Brien was executive producer of, who also co-wrote the pilot. The show starred O'Brien's former sidekick Andy Richter. After several episodes and low ratings, the show was canceled.
On Late Night, Conan has become known for his more active and spontaneous hosting style. His stage habits include but are not limited to pantomime, self-deprecation, dramatic expressions, various impressions and use of awkward pauses or responses. He frequently makes fun of the audience. He commonly makes light of his own appearance including his hairstyle, his pale skin and he jokes about his height being 6'4. |
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