Host

With a comic identity as distinctive as his name, according to The New York Times, Conan O�Brien has firmly established himself in the late night universe. Hailed by �The Washington Post as modest, wry, self-effacing and demonstrably the most intelligent of the late-night comics,� O�Brien is one of TV�s hottest properties according to People magazine�s 1996 25 Most Intriguing People issue. His unique brand of comedy has earned Conan the title Late Night�s King of Cool from Entertainment Weekly and landed him on the magazine�s list of the 50 Funniest People Alive. This season marks O�Brien�s ninth season combining his talents as writer, performer and interviewer as host of Late Night, which his hometown paper The Boston Globe dubbed, the most consistently funny and original show on late night. In addition, O�Brien currently heads up Conaco, a production partnership with the network to develop programming for NBC primetime and other dayparts. Since 1996, O�Brien and the Late Night writing team have consistently been nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series. In both 1997 and 2000, he and the Late Night writing staff have won the Writer�s Guild Award for Best Writing in a Comedy/Variety Series. Two-time president of the venerable and notorious Harvard Lampoon, O�Brien moved to Los Angeles upon graduation and joined the writing staff of HBO�s Not Necessarily the News. During his two years with the show, he performed regularly with several improvisational groups, including The Groundlings. By 1988 his talents had come to the attention of Saturday Night Live�s executive producer Lorne Michaels, who hired O�Brien as a writer in January of that year. His three-and-a-half years on the show produced such recurring sketches as Mr. Short-Term Memory and The Girl Watchers (first performed by Tom Hanks and Jon Lovitz). In 1989 his work on SNL was recognized with an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy or Variety Series. In the spring of 1991, O�Brien left SNL and wrote and produced a TV pilot, Lookwell, starring Adam West. It was telecast on NBC in July of that year but was not picked up as a series. That fall O�Brien signed on as a writer/producer for the Fox series, The Simpsons, where he later became the show�s supervising producer. Of all the episodes he wrote, his favorite is Springfield Gets a Monorail.On April 26, 1993, O�Brien was selected from among the many talented potential hosts of Late Night for his particular and unique mix of vitality, wit and intelligence, according to Michaels. Born in Brookline, Massachusetts, O�Brien resides in New York City. His birthday is April 18.