I was watching a repeat of Stephen Colbert on Larry King the other night, and he answered about half his questions as his serious self and the other half as the ignorant arrogant persona (the other Stephen Colbert). I’ve thought several times that while he’s getting rich and has a great show/great job, it must be frustrating at times that he’s not just playing a character but he’s playing a character with the same name and bio (born in Charleston, youngest of 11 kids, etc.) as his real self.
Several actors have been very famous for playing a character: Andrew Clay Silverstein has played Andrew Dice Clay for 20-odd years, Clifford Arquette was Charlie Weaver on most of his appearances (the real old man was a booze and hooker loving playboy, incidentally), Andy Kaufman was infamous as Tony Clifton, etc… I suppose to some extent stand-up comics have this: Rodney Dangerfield and Phyllis Diller both did jokes about their spouses when in fact both were divorced/single and every comedian seems to have just broken up with their girlfriend or whatever, but then in another conflation Colbert actually tells the truth about his personal life (married, three kids, lives in NJ).
Have any entertainers had a whole other persona with the same name and background like Colbert does?
Seinfeld would be close. I’m looking for people who have played a fictional character using their own name and much of their bio. (The real Stephen Colbert, for instance, is an extremely well read and if-not-liberal-then-at-least-not-conservative guy who plays Stephen Colbert, an obnoxious unread ultra-conservative.)
Wouldn’t the aforementioned Kaufman count? I missed his several years of fame but from what I understand his schtick probably crossed the line from “deliberately altering the expression of your personality for profit” into “creating a new character for profit” even if he was always in-character.
Well, for decades, from Lucille Ball through Bob Newhart to, um, Bob Newhart, there’s been a whole lot of sitcom comedians playing characters with the same name. Sometimes they have some overlap with the real person (Lucy married to a Cuban bandleader played by her real Cuban bandleader husband; Seinfeld), sometimes less (Bob Newhart and, um, Bob Newhart again).
How lesser extent? The comedic Benny had a radio and TV show just like the real one.
We also have Dean Martin playing Deano the drunk - even before he became Deano the drunk.
Even comics who didn’t play themselves did, to an extent. W. C. Fields might have had another name in his movies, but when he went on radio he played the W. C. Fields persona, just like Colbert did.
Back then I suppose they assumed the audience couldn’t tell the difference. In an interview with Lewis Black on the air, he was normal for most of it, but at the end he went into a Lewis Black rant, I suppose just to show how it is done. I don’t think that happened back in radio days.
FYI, only the fictional Stephen Colbert went to Dartmouth. No word on whether the real Colbert ever spray the F over the D on the Dartmouth sign (that’s copyrighted, Dartmouth students!).
Dean Martin makes me think of Jerry Lewis. Jerry Lewis had his ditzy persona with the screechy voice, but when you saw him out of character he was totally different.
Al Franken used a parody version of himself as the main character in Why Not Me?, a book about his supposed Presidential campaign and has also done so to a lesser extent in other books.
William Goldman used a fictional version of himself to frame his novel The Princess Bride. He talks about giving the book to his son; in reality, Goldman has two daughters and no son.