Who

O'Brien spent 16 years hosting Late Night with Conan O'Brien before decamping to LA to take over the Tonight Show from Jay Leno in early 2009.

Backstory

Like many comedy writers, Brookline, Mass. native O'Brien got his start at the Harvard Lampoon. (It also happens to be where his criminal record was first established: then-Crimson editor/future boss Jeff Zucker had him arrested for stealing an entire print run of the Crimson before it could be distributed.) After writing for a couple of short-lived TV shows and performing with the Groundlings comedy troupe, O'Brien got his first break when Lorne Michaels hired him as a Saturday Night Live writer in 1988. Burnt out after three seasons, O'Brien left the show in 1991, driving his Taurus to the West Coast to work on a TV pilot that was never produced. He landed a gig writing for The Simpsons instead and spent two years working on the show, creating a bunch of much-loved episodes including "Marge vs. The Monorail."

Despite his near-total lack of on-camera experience, in 1993 NBC tapped him to be David Letterman's late-night successor as the host of Late Night. With Lorne Michaels as the show's executive producer and Andy Richter as his sidekick, Late Night with Conan O'Brien got off to a rocky start: Conan was nervous and awkward in front of the camera, interns were brought in to fill empty seats, and the show escaped cancellation only because NBC lacked a suitable replacement. Late Night hit its stride around season three or four, and Conan has rarely had a hitch since. Over the years, he's had Martha Stewart eat a cold Taco Bell burrito and drink malt liquor, introduced the world to Robert Smigel's Triumph the Insult Dog, traveled to Finland to meet the president, and launched the hit website hornymanatee.com.

Recently

After 16 years and 2,725 episodes, O'Brien left Late Night in February 2009 and headed out West to start preparing for his Tonight Show debut in June. Although the move has been in the works since 2005, just how well Conan will do broadcasting an hour earlier from Burbank remains to be seen, and many are wondering if his snide and cerebral brand of comedy will translate to the more mainstream Tonight Show demographic.

Grudge

Although it hasn't yet reached Letterman-Leno proportions, there have long been tensions between O'Brien and Jon Stewart. In 1993, O'Brien beat out Stewart for the Letterman slot, and it was reported that Stewart was considered as a possible replacement for Leno, only to watch as Conan beat him out once again. Yet in recent years it's Stewart who has emerged as a critical darling, and his wit, sarcasm and on-point political humor have earned him a good deal more press than his more mainstream rival. O'Brien is said to "bristle at the unfairness of Stewart's comedic hegemony… for a far less complex, toilsome, and popular show."

The look

His size (6'4 and rail-thin), pallor (in his stage makeup he can appear positively mime-like), and gravity-defying bright-red hair make him one of New York's most recognizable figures. He often hides under a baseball cap when he's on the streets, although it hardly disguises him.

Personal

After dating Lisa Kudrow in the '90s, O'Brien married former advertising exec Liza Powell in 2002. They have two children—a daughter named Neve and a son named Beckett—and live in the Majestic on Central Park West. In 2007, the O'Briens paid $10 million for the penthouse above their 17th floor apartment and combined the spaces. They also own homes in California, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

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