Information about Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart in December 2000 Jon Stewart in December 2000
Birth name	Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz
Born	November 28 1962 (1962--) (age 46) New York City, New York, United States
Medium	stand-up, television, film, books
Nationality	American
Years active	1987-present
Genres	satire/political satire/news satire, observational comedy
Subject(s)	The media (esp. news media), American politics, current events, religion, Jewish culture, race relations, human sexuality, self-deprecation
Influences	George Carlin, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Steve Martin,[] David Letterman
Influenced	Stephen Colbert[1]
Spouse	Tracey McShane (November 2000 - present) 2 children
Notable works and roles	Host of The Daily Show
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 The Daily Show Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 The Daily Show
Grammy Awards
Best Comedy Album 2005 ''

Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz on November 28,1962) is an American comedian, satirist, actor, writer, and producer. He is best known as the host of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and for his political satire.

Stewart started as a stand-up comedian, but later branched out to television, hosting Short Attention Span Theater for Comedy Central. He went on to host his own show on MTV, called The Jon Stewart Show, and then hosted another show on MTV called You Wrote It, You Watch It.

Stewart became the host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central in early 1999. He is also a writer and co-producer of the show. After Stewart joined it, The Daily Show steadily gained popularity and critical acclaim leading to his first Emmy Award in 2001. Stewart himself has also gained significant notoriety as a vocal, outspoken critic of the Bush administration and of personality-driven media shows, in particular Bill O'Reilly and Fox News Channel.^[1]

Stewart co-wrote America (The Book), which was one of the top fifteen best-sellers in the US in 2004.^[2] Stewart hosted the 78th Academy Awards and was recently chosen to return to host the 80th Academy Awards on Sunday, February 24, 2008.

Personal background

Jon Stewart was born in New York City^[3] and grew up in Lawrence, New Jersey, where he attended Lawrence High School. His father, Donald Leibowitz, is a physicist at The College of New Jersey and his mother, Marian, is an educational consultant. His parents divorced when he was nine years old. He and his older brother, Larry, stayed with their mother. While attending Lawrence High School, he was a member of the school band as a French horn player. Stewart has said that he was subjected to considerable harassment from some of his classmates as he was the only Jewish student.^[1] He describes his high school self as "very into Eugene Debs and a bit of a leftist."^[4] He graduated from Lawrence High School third in his class.^[5]

Stewart attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, majoring in psychology and played on the men’s soccer team.^[6] An award titled the "Leibo" is now given out annually in honor of Stewart; it is given to the member of the men’s soccer team who experiences the most personal growth and provides the most laughs for his teammates. He was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity but left after six months.^[7] While at William and Mary, he coached soccer at Gloucester High School in Gloucester. He admits to having smoked heavy amounts of marijuana in college and claims that he was "miserable" there.^[0] On the 2006 September 14 edition of The Daily Show, he said that he started smoking cigarettes when he was age fifteen. He jokingly said, "If a camel can do it, who am I not to?"

After graduating from William and Mary in 1984, Stewart held numerous jobs, including contingency planner for the New Jersey Department of Human Services, contract administrator for City University of New York, puppeteer for children with disabilities, construction worker, caterer, busboy, shelf stocker at Woolworth’s, and bartender at a local blue-collar bar, the Franklin Corner Tavern. He also worked for a time as a breath-tester at an inflatable plastic water-toy factory. During part of this time, Stewart roomed with future congressman Anthony Weiner, who, to date, is the only politician to have received campaign donations from the Daily Show host.^[9].

Stewart married long-time girlfriend Tracey McShane, a veterinary technician, in November 2000. The exact date of their marriage is publicly unknown, but on the April 23, 2002 episode of The Daily Show, Stewart stated that he had been married "almost eighteen months".^[0]On June 19, 2001, Stewart and his wife filed a joint name change application and legally changed both of their last names to "Stewart".^[10] He proposed to her by working with Will Shortz, the crossword editor at The New York Times, and together they created a puzzle that popped the question. The couple had their first child, Nathan Thomas Stewart (named after Stewart’s grandfather) on July 3, 2004. Their second child, a daughter, Maggie Rose Stewart, was born on February 4, 2006.^[11] They also have a cat named Stanley and two bull terriers, Monkey and Shamsky (named after Art Shamsky).

In 2004, Stewart spoke at the commencement ceremonies at his alma mater, William and Mary, and was presented with an honorary Doctor of Arts degree.^[12] Stewart was also the Class Day keynote speaker at Princeton University in 2004. In addition to his interest in soccer, Jon Stewart is also an avid baseball fan; his favorite team is the New York Mets.^[13] In 2006, he received an honorary All-America award from the National Soccer Coaches Association of America. His favorite musicians include Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, and Buffalo Tom. In 2000, when host Larry King asked him if he was a Democrat, Jon confirmed but went on to say that he was "more of socialist or an independent".^[14]

Professional background

Early work

With a reputation for being a funny man even in school, Jon Stewart moved to New York City in 1986 to try his hand at the comedy club circuit, but he did not muster the courage to get on stage until the following year. He made his stand-up debut at The Bitter End, the same place where his comedic idol, Woody Allen, began.^[15] He began using the stage name "Jon Stewart" by dropping his last name and changing the spelling of his middle name "Stuart" to "Stewart". While he often jokes this is because people had difficulty with the pronunciation of Leibowitz or it "sounded too Hollywood" ^[16] (a reference to Lenny Bruce’s joke on the same theme), Stewart has implied that the name change was actually due to a strained relationship with his father, with whom Stewart no longer has any contact.^[17] Stewart became a regular at the Comedy Cellar where he was the last performer every night. For two years, he would perform at 2am while developing his comedic style.^[18] In 1989, he landed his first television job as a writer for Caroline’s Comedy Hour. In 1991, he began hosting Comedy Central’s Short Attention Span Theatre. In 1992, Stewart hosted the short-lived You Wrote It, You Watch It on MTV, which invited viewers to send in their stories to be acted out by the comedy troupe The State. In 1993, he was a finalist to replace David Letterman who was leaving NBC, but Conan O’Brien was hired instead.

Later that year, Stewart developed his own talk show at MTV. Despite the quick cancellation of his previous MTV show, the network was still eager to work with him. The Jon Stewart Show was the first talk show on that network and was an instant hit, becoming the second highest-rated MTV show behind Beavis and Butt-head.^[19] In 1994, Paramount pulled the plug on The Arsenio Hall Show and, with new corporate sibling MTV (through MTV parent Viacom’s acquisition of the studio), launched an hour-long syndicated late-night version of The Jon Stewart Show. Many local affiliates had moved Hall’s show to 2am during its decline. Stewart’s show inherited such early morning timeslots in many cities. Ratings were dismal and the show was cancelled in June 1995.

Amongst the fans of the show was David Letterman, who was the final guest of The Jon Stewart Show. Letterman signed Stewart with his production company, Worldwide Pants. Stewart then became a frequent guest host for Tom Snyder on The Late Late Show, which was produced by Letterman and aired after Late Show on CBS. This led to much speculation that Stewart would soon replace Snyder permanently, yet Stewart was instead offered the time slot after Snyder which he turned down.

The Daily Show

Main article: The Daily Show

In 1999, Stewart began hosting The Daily Show on Comedy Central when Craig Kilborn left the show to replace Tom Snyder on The Late Late Show. He has since hosted almost all airings of the program, except for a few occasions when correspondents such as Stephen Colbert, Rob Corddry and for a whole week, Steve Carell, have filled in at the anchor desk. Stewart has won a total of ten Emmys for The Daily Show as either a writer or producer.^[1] The show has been hugely popular and widely successful in cable television since Stewart became host of the show, which blends humor with the day's top news stories, usually in politics, while simultaneously attacking the hypocrisy of politicians and many newsmakers. In 2005, The Daily Show and Jon Stewart also received a Best Comedy Album Grammy Award for the audio book edition of America (The Book). In 2000 and 2004, the show won two Peabody Awards for its coverage of the presidential elections relevant to those years, called "Indecision 2000" and "Indecision 2004", respectively.

One of the show's most enduring and serious moments, one that arguably cemented his role in American culture, remains the September 21, 2001 show—their first show after attacks of September 11, 2001. The show began with no introduction. Prior to this date, The Daily Show introduction included footage of a fly-in towards the World Trade Center and New York City. The first nine minutes of the show included a tearful Stewart discussing his personal view on the event. His remarks ended as follows:

The view...from my apartment...was the World Trade Center.....and now it’s gone, and they attacked it. This symbol of American ingenuity, and strength, and.....and labor, and imagination and commerce, and it is gone. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the South of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty. You can’t beat that.

Another notable moment occurred on April 24, 2006 when Stewart confronted his longtime friend, US Senator John McCain, about his decision to appear at Liberty University, an institution founded by Jerry Falwell, a man who McCain had previously denounced as one of the "agents of intolerance".^{[21] [22]} In the interchange, Stewart asked McCain "You’re not freaking out on us? Are you freaking out on us, because if you’re freaking out and you’re going into the crazy base [politics] world— are you going into crazy base world?" McCain replied "I’m afraid so." The clip was played on CNN and created a surge of articles across the blogs.^[23] Most recently The Daily Show was involved in former correspondant Stephen Colbert's announcement that he would run for election in 2008.

Replacing Letterman on The Late Show

In the middle of 2002, amid rumors that David Letterman was going to make a switch from CBS to ABC when his contract ran out with CBS, Stewart was rumored to be the person who would take over Letterman’s show on CBS. But ultimately, Letterman renewed his contract with CBS. On the March 9, 2002 episode of Saturday Night Live that Stewart hosted, a “Weekend Update” sketch poked fun at the situation. In the middle of the sketch, “Weekend Update” host Jimmy Fallon said that he couldn’t continue doing the broadcast, and he brought Stewart in to replace him. Stewart glowed with excitement and chattered to himself about his chance to prove himself on network television. His pep talk went on too long, however, and before Stewart could deliver any headlines, Fallon returned and said he would be able to finish out the broadcast himself.

Later that year, ABC offered Stewart his own talk show to air after Nightline. Stewart’s contract with The Daily Show was near expiring and he expressed strong interest. But ABC decided to give another Comedy Central figure, Jimmy Kimmel, the post-Nightline slot.^[24] Still, many people believe that when Letterman does retire, Stewart may replace him to continue the Late Show franchise and compete with The Tonight Show. At a London appearance on December 11 2005 when asked if he would replace Letterman, Stewart said it would be unlikely, because on Comedy Central he has creative independence that CBS would probably not give him. In reference to Letterman’s wealth, he quipped, "Really, who needs all that money?"

In 2007, the New York Post reported that Stewart met with NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, in what is believed to have been an initial attempt to lure the comedian to replace Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show in 2009. Conan O'Brien had previously been announced as Leno's replacement.

Crossfire appearance

Stewart attracted media attention as a result of a televised exchange with former CNN personality Tucker Carlson on Crossfire on October 15, 2004. Stewart criticized the state of television journalism and pleaded with the show’s hosts to "stop hurting America", and referred to both Carlson and co-host Paul Begala as "partisan hacks". This exchange became one of the most widely viewed Internet videos to date,^[25] and a topic of much media discussion.

During the interview, Stewart asserted that Crossfire had failed in its responsibility to inform and educate viewers about politics as a serious topic. Stewart complained that the show engaged in partisan hackery instead of honest debate, and said that the hosts’ assertion that Crossfire is a debate show is like "saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition". Carlson responded by saying that Stewart criticizes news organizations for not holding public officials accountable, but when he interviewed John Kerry, Stewart asked a series of softball questions. Stewart responded that the media is in dismal shape if "[it is looking] to Comedy Central for [its] cues on integrity". When Carlson continued to press Stewart on the Kerry issue, Stewart said, "You’re on CNN! The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls! What is wrong with you?" When Carlson told Stewart he was not as funny in person as he was on his show, Stewart retorted, "You’re as big a dick on your show as you are on any show."^[26] In response to further prods from Carlson to "be funny", Stewart said, "No, I’m not going to be your monkey."

The day after the incident occurred, on The Daily Show, Stewart said, “I went to this place, Crossfire, which is a nuanced public debate show named after the stray bullets that strike and kill innocent bystanders during a gang fight. So I go to Crossfire and, let’s face it, I was dehydrated, it’s the Martin Lawrence defence...and I had always in the past mentioned to friends and people I meet on the street that I think that show blows. So I thought it was only the right thing to do to go and say it to them personally on their program...but here’s the thing about confronting someone with that on their show...they’re there...Uncomfortable!...and they were very mad, because apparently, when you invite someone on a show called Crossfire and you express an opinion, they...they don’t care for that...I told them that I thought their show was hurting America and they came back at me pretty good, they said I wasn’t being funny. I then said, ‘I know that, but tomorrow I will go back to being funny, and your show will still blow.'"^[27][28]

In January 2005, CNN announced that it was canceling Crossfire. When asked about the cancellations, CNN/US' incoming President, Jonathan Klein, said about Stewart’s appearance on the show, "I think he made a good point about the noise level of these types of shows, which does nothing to illuminate the issues of the day."^[29] Soon after Stewart quipped on The Daily Show that "I fought the law, and the law lost!"

Books

In 1998, Stewart released his first book Naked Pictures of Famous People. A collection of humorous short stories and essays, the book reached The New York Times Best Seller List.

In 2004, Stewart and The Daily Show writing staff released , a mock high school history textbook offering insights into the unique American system of government, dissecting its institutions, explaining its history and processes, and satirizing such popular American political precepts as "one man, one vote", "government by the people", and "every vote counts". The book sold millions of copies upon its 2004 release and ended the year as a top fifteen best-seller.<ref name="Top15books2004" />

Film and television acting

Although best known for his work on The Daily Show, Stewart has also had roles in several films and television series.

His first major film role, in The First Wives Club, ended up on the cutting room floor. In 1995, Stewart signed a three-year deal with Miramax.^[30] He played romantic leads in the films Playing by Heart and Wishful Thinking. He also had supporting roles in the romantic comedy Since You’ve Been Gone and in the horror film The Faculty. Other films were planned for Stewart to write and star in but they were never produced. Stewart has since maintained a relationship with Bob and Harvey Weinstein and continues to appear in films they have produced including Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Doogal and the documentary Wordplay. He also made an appearance on Dr Katz, Professional Therapist.

He also appeared in Half Baked as an “enhancement smoker”, in Big Daddy as Adam Sandler’s roommate, and in the documentary The Aristocrats. Stewart often makes fun of his appearances in the high-profile flop Death to Smoochy, in which he played a treacherous television executive, and the animated film Doogal, where he played a blue spring named Zeebad that shot a freeze ray from his moustache.

Stewart had a recurring role in The Larry Sanders Show in which he played himself as an occasional substitute and possible successor to late-night talk show host Larry Sanders (played by Garry Shandling). In 1998, Stewart hosted the television special, Elmopalooza, celebrating thirty years of Sesame Street. He has guest-starred on other television shows such as Mr Show, The Nanny, Spin City, and NewsRadio, in addition to the Saturday Night Live episode he hosted in March 2002. He also played himself in a minor part on the FOX animated series American Dad.

He has made recent appearances in two children's television shows. On PBS' "Between the Lions", he appeared as himself, conducting an interview with one of the show's characters on the "Daily Show" set. He also appeared on Noggin's "Jack's Big Music Show", as a reporter seeking to interview a groundhog on Groundhog Day.

In 2007, Jon played a small role in Evan Almighty, portraying himself on The Daily Show. The star of Evan Almighty was Steve Carell, a former Daily Show correspondent.

He is set to play himself in season 19 of The Simpsons.

Producing

In the mid-1990s, Stewart launched his own production company named Busboy Productions. Stewart signed a deal with Miramax to develop his own projects. However, none of Stewart’s ideas were ever produced. After Stewart’s success as host and producer of The Daily Show, he revived Busboy Productions with Daily Show producers Ben Karlin and Rich Korson. In 2002, Busboy planned to produce a sitcom for NBC starring Stephen Colbert but the show did not come to fruition.^[31]

In 2005, Comedy Central reached an agreement with Busboy to finance the production company. Comedy Central has a first-look agreement of all projects, then Busboy is free to shop them to other networks.^[32][33] The deal spawned the Daily Show spin-off The Colbert Report. Other upcoming projects include the sitcom Three Strikes, the documentary Sportsfan, and the film The Donor.

In October 2007, Comedy Central ordered at least 6 episodes of "Important things with Demetri Martin". The show featuring Demetri Martin, is being co-edited personally by Jon Stewart. It is slated to run sometime mid-2008. Demetri Martin hosts a sometime-segment on The Daily Show entitled "Trendspotting".

The name of the company is a reference to Stewart’s previous job as a busboy. The company’s vanity card features the sound of a glass being knocked over followed by a voice whispering "Oops. Sorry."

Honors

Stewart and the rest of the members of The Daily Show have received two Peabody Awards: one, for a piece covering the 2000 Presidential Elections entitled , and the other for covering the 2004 Presidential Elections entitled . In 2003 December, in the New Years edition of Newsweek magazine, Stewart was named the "Who’s Next?" person for the coming year of 2004, with the magazine predicting he would emerge as an absolute sensation in that year (the magazine said they were right in the "who’s next for 2005" issue). He was also named one of the 2005 Time 100, an annual list of 100 of the most influential people of the year by Time Magazine.^[34] Entertainment Weekly named Stewart as its “Entertainer of the Year” for 2004. In addition, Stewart was the recipient of the NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language (the Orwell Award for short) in 2005.

Grammy Awards

Stewart has hosted the Grammys twice, in 2001 and in 2002. In the middle of the 2001 broadcast, after laying a number of comedic duds, Stewart did what he encourages most public officials to do, and owned up to his bad hosting: he said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to say I feel your scorn and accept it." When Stewart returned to host the next year, his comedy was more successful. Joking about the performance of the song "Lady Marmalade", he said, "Our next performance is from the movie Moulin Rouge!, a film about a time when the whorehouses were about the music!” When the awardees for Album of the Year walked up on stage, many in number, Stewart quipped, "I don’t know what you may have heard, but you were only supposed to go on stage if you worked on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, not if you heard it."

Oscars

On January 5, 2006, Stewart was officially announced as the host of the 78th Academy Awards (Oscars), which were held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on March 5. Responding to press questions at the time of his selection, Stewart remarked: "As a performer, I’m truly honored to be hosting the show. Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can’t help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal."^[35] (According to The New York Times, Oscar producer Gil Cates knew Crystal was going to be performing 700 Sundays during the time period and was not able to host.) On the Monday before the Oscars, Stewart told Larry King that he was more "excited" than nervous about the job and joked that if he turns out a failure, he could be "bumped down to public access". When asked what the opening would be, the comedian chastised himself by comparing a Stewart opening to a "Gene Rayburn homage". Instead, the opening segment, preceding Stewart’s monologue, featured several recent hosts “declining” to host the show.

Critical response to Stewart’s performance was mixed. Various celebrities and other film personalities were generally positive. Roger Ebert compared him favorably to legendary Oscar host Johnny Carson.^[36] Other reviewers were less positive; Tom Shales of The Washington Post said that Stewart hosted with “smug humorlessness.” James Poniewozik of Time said that Stewart was a bad host, but a great “anti-host” in that he poked fun at parts of the broadcast that deserved it, which lent him a degree of authenticity with the non-Hollywood audience.^[37] Audiences liked Stewart with an overwhelming majority of persons polled responding he had hosted well, in polls conducted by The Hollywood Reporter and MSNBC. Stewart and correspondent John Oliver later poked fun at his lackluster reception on The Daily Show’s coverage of the 79th Academy Awards by saying that the "demon of last year’s Oscars had finally been exorcised".

Stewart will be the host of 80th Academy Awards in 2008.^[38]

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1994	Mixed Nuts	Rollerblader
1996	The First Wives Club	Elise’s lover	scenes deleted
1997	Wishful Thinking	Henry
1998	Half Baked	Enhancement Smoker
	Since You’ve Been Gone	Todd Zalinsky	TV film
	The Faculty	Prof Edward Furlong
	Playing by Heart	Trent
1999	Big Daddy	Kevin Gerrity
2000	The Office Party	Pizza Guy	short film
	Committed	Party Guest	uncredited cameo
2001	Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back	Reg Hartner
2002	Death to Smoochy	Marion Frank Stokes
	The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina	Godfrey	voice
	It’s a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie	Himself	scenes deleted
2006	The Magic Roundabout (Doogal in North America)	Zeebad	voice
2007	Evan Almighty	Himself

Bibliography

• Naked Pictures of Famous People (Rob Weisbach Books, 1998) ISBN 0-688-15530-8
• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction (Warner Books, 2004) ISBN 0-446-53268-1

References

External links

• Jon Stewart at the Internet Movie Database
• Jon Stewart at the Notable Names Database
• Official site for The Daily Show on Comedy Central
• Jon Stewart Biography at manhattan.about.com
• Interview with Stewart on NPR’s Fresh Air (2004-09-30)
• Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire (2004-10-15)
• Stewart on Bill Moyers Now July 2003
• Stewart on Bill Moyers Journal April 2007
• Stewart on Crossfire, multiple non-streaming formats
• Jon Stewart’s campaign contributions
• Video: Jon Stewart Hosting the Oscars (2006-03-05)
• StewartSlams.com Video Archive
• The Jon Stewart Experience—web site devoted to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
• http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/bljonstewartquotes.htm
• Jon Stewart at the Oxonian Society
• Jon Stewart, Jennifer Tilly & the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile

Preceded by Craig Kilborn 1996-1998	The Daily Show anchor 1999-	Succeeded by Current
Preceded by Chris Rock 77th Awards	Oscars host 78th Awards	Succeeded by Ellen DeGeneres 79th Awards
Preceded by Ellen DeGeneres 79th Awards	Oscars host 80th Awards	Succeeded by Incumbent

•  • [ e] The Daily Show
Hosts:	Craig Kilborn • Jon Stewart
Guests:	1996 • 1997 • 1998 • 1999 • 2000 • 2001 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007
Special series:	• • •
Spin-offs:	The Colbert Report • Red State Diaries
Other:	America (The Book) • Awards • Recurring elements

Persondata
NAME	Leibowitz, Jonathan Stuart
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Jon Stewart
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Comedian actor best known for his role in the satirical comedy news show The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
DATE OF BIRTH	1962-11-28
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH