Colbert’s tragic comedy

Stephen Colbert can vividly recall the moment that he decided to become a comedian, said Eric Spitznagel in Playboy. “It was when we were driving back from my father’s funeral,” says Colbert, who was just 10 years old when his father and two teenage brothers died in a plane crash. “One of my sisters, I think it was Mary, made a joke to Margo. Or it could have been Lulu to both of them. One of them made Margo laugh so hard, she snorted and fell on the floor. There was enough room between the seats to actually fall on the floor of this limo.” He can’t recall the joke. “But I remember the laughter. I remember thinking, ‘I would like that. That connection.’” Colbert inherited his brothers’ collection of Bill Cosby comedy records. “I had Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow…Right! and Wonderfulness, and I listened to them over and over and over again, every night. I just wore them out.” He recently put the albums on his iPod. “I can do every joke. I can do every joke with the exact same rhythm and timing that Mr. Cosby does them, after 30 years of not listening to them, because they were so deeply ingrained in me.”

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