Inside Colbert’s Success

My wife, Emily Lazar, worked at both The Colbert Report and The Late Show and she helps me look under the hood.

Stephen Colbert

My view of Stephen Colbert and the demise of his show is even less objective than that of all of the superstars who have been paying elaborate tribute to him in recent weeks. He and his formidable wife, Evie, are good friends in Montclair, N.J., where we have all lived for many years. My formidable wife, Emily Lazar, worked for Stephen in a senior role from the start of The Colbert Report in 2005 until she left The Late Show 11 years later.

Emily echoes Stephen when she says that the people who have worked with him on both shows deserve more credit than the press has given them.

Geniuses in any realm always say the same. Steve Jobs had Steve Wozniak and Jony Ive; Bruce Springsteen has his E Street Band, and Stephen, the ringmaster, has had an inspired team of writers and producers behind him all along. Sadly, most of them are now looking for work.

Let’s start with Tom Purcell, Stephen’s muse and alter ego in nerdiness. Like Raymond Siller for Johnny Carson or Merrill Markoe (with big assists from Steve O’Donnell, Bill Scheft, and others) for David Letterman, Tom’s role has been bigger than just executive producer. From the start, beyond great jokes, he has provided intellectual heft, especially on politics. If, like millions of others, Colbert has helped you process your disgust with Trump, you can thank Tom along with Stephen himself. Supervising Producer Paul Dinello, one of Stephen’s oldest friends, is a human oil can who loosens up his comic joints. Head writer Jay Katsir has written an astonishing array of good jokes -political and otherwise - over the years.

Producer Tom Purcell on the set of The Late Show

If, like me, you think that Stephen’s character on the old show was one of the most brilliant creations in the history of television, you should also thank Allison Silverman, an executive producer of The Colbert Report, who, with Rich Dahm, helped him form the character.

Stephen’s high-status blowhard look on that show–an underrated dimension-was fashioned largely by makeup artist Kerri Plante-Price. Matt Lapin has been both shows’ versatile court jester – Colbert’s Colbert. Andro Buneta, the art director, created a visual look that made the graphics almost another character. Set designer Brendan Hurley, costume director Antonia Xereas (critical for comedic bits), scrappy talent booker Amy Schwartz, and the late, great Amy Cole (Stephen’s uber-competent chief of staff) are just a few of the altar boys and girls who offered up the high priest (Stephen) what he needed before he even knew himself. I’m sorry for not mentioning all the other great teammates.

Colbert with staffers in 2024 (Photo: Instagram/@colbertlateshow)

This is not just because she’s my wife: Emily Lazar was the talent producer, and later an executive producer, in charge of the guests, and her vision of who Stephen’s character should meet, argue against, and improvise with was critical to the success of The Colbert Report. My favorite moments were when she convinced Stephen to run as a South Carolina favorite son candidate for president in 2008 (he eventually withdrew); she convinced President Obama to order General Ray Odierno to shave Stephen’s head in Iraq; and she convinced Stephen to dance a pas de deux from the Nutcracker with the principal dancer of the New York City Ballet. On The Late Show, she produced an intimate interview about death with then-Vice President Biden.

In The New York Times this week, Bill Carter writes that Chris Licht, best known for being fired as president of CNN, was responsible for stabilizing The Late Show after a rocky start in 2016 by injecting more material lampooning Trump. This ticked me off because I was an eyewitness to what really happened. At the 2016 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia and the Republican Convention in Cleveland, I watched as Emily pleaded in vain with Licht to include more Trump material and political guests at the conventions and beyond. He ignored her before finally adopting her recommendation after Trump won.

It’s cold comfort for Colbert, but his firing last year will be in history books a century from now as an illustration of how America’s would-be tyrant tried to silence criticism. Don’t let cowardly CBS executives confuse the issue. I learned from a lawyer close to the deal that Trump had decreed that Skydance Media’s purchase of Paramount would not be approved unless Colbert was fired. Period. Sure, there were financial losses, but on their own, they would not have led to the show's cancellation.

Don’t worry about Stephen’s future. He has loads of talent and lots of opportunities. It will be fun to see how he seizes them.