Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson is a Scottish actor, comedian, writer and television host. He hosted the CBS late-night talk show The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, for which he won a Peabody Award for his interview with South African archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2009.
After leaving The Late Late Show in December 2014, he hosted the syndicated game show Celebrity Name Game, for which he won two Daytime Emmy Awards, and Join or Die with Craig Ferguson on History. In 2017, he released a six-episode web show with his wife, Megan Wallace Cunningham, titled Couple Thinkers. In 2021, he hosted The Hustler, a television game show that aired on ABC from 4 January to 23 September 2021. In August 2023, Ferguson began broadcasting his own podcast Joy on iHeartMedia.
After starting his career in the United Kingdom with music, comedy, and theatre, Ferguson moved to the United States, where he appeared in the role of Nigel Wick on the ABC sitcom The Drew Carey Show. Ferguson has written three books: Between the Bridge and the River, a novel; American on Purpose, a memoir; and Riding the Elephant: A Memoir of Altercations, Humiliations, Hallucinations & Observations. He holds both British and American citizenship.
He has written and starred in three films, directing one of them, and has appeared in several others. In animated film, Ferguson voiced Gobber in the How to Train Your Dragon film series, Owl in Winnie the Pooh, and Lord Macintosh in Brave.
Early life and education
Ferguson was born on 17 May 1962 in Stobhill Hospital in the Springburn district of Glasgow, to Robert, a post office worker and Scottish Nationalist, and Janet Ferguson, a primary school teacher. When he was six months old, he and his family moved from their Springburn flat to a Development Corporation house in the nearby New Town of Cumbernauld, where he grew up "chubby and bullied". They lived there as Cumbernauld was rehousing many Glaswegians away from the poor housing conditions and damage to the city from World War II.Ferguson attended Muirfield Primary School and Cumbernauld High School. At age 16, Ferguson left high school and began an apprenticeship to be an electronics technician at a local factory of American company Burroughs Corporation. Ferguson has two sisters and one older brother. His younger sister, Lynn Ferguson Tweddle, is also a comedian, presenter and actress, who voiced Mac in the 2000 stop-motion animation film Chicken Run. She was a writer on The Late Late Show until July 2011.
His first visit to the United States was in 1975, when he was 13, to visit an uncle who lived on Long Island, near New York City. When he moved to New York City in 1983, he worked in construction in Harlem. He was later a bouncer at the nightclub Save the Robots before returning to the United Kingdom.
Career
British career
Ferguson's entertainment career began as a teenager, drumming for Glasgow punk bands such as the Night Creatures and Exposure. He then had a brief stint as a drummer for the post-punk band Ana Hausen, which released a single for Human Records in 1981. Following that, he joined punk band The Bastards from Hell, later renamed the Dreamboys, and fronted by future actor Peter Capaldi. They performed regularly in Glasgow from 1980 to 1982. Ferguson credits Capaldi for inspiring him to try comedy. When Ferguson was 18, he worked as a session musician and performed as a drummer for Nico during a few gigs when she toured Scotland.After a nerve-wracking first comedy appearance, he decided to create a character he described as a "parody of all the über-patriotic native folk singers who seemed to infect every public performance in Scotland," using the name "Bing Hitler" borrowed from Peter Capaldi. Ferguson first performed as the character in Glasgow, and was subsequently a hit at the 1986 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. However, by the end of the year, Ferguson was already discussing his intention to retire Bing. At the press launch for an alternative pantomime of "Sleeping Beauty", he said, "You can't write for just one character forever." A recording of his act as Bing Hitler was made at Glasgow's Tron Theatre and released in the 1980s; a Bing Hitler monologue appears on the compilation cassette Honey at the Core.
After enjoying success at the Edinburgh Festival, Ferguson appeared on television as 'Confidence' in Red Dwarf, on STV's Hogmanay Shows, and on the 1993 One Foot in the Grave Christmas special One Foot in the Algarve. In 1990, a pilot of The Craig Ferguson Show, a one-off comedy pilot for Granada Television, was broadcast, co-starring Paul Whitehouse and Helen Atkinson-Wood. In 1991, Channel 4 asked him to host Friday at the Dome, a 75-minute live music show. In 1992, he was given his own BBC Scotland show, 2000 Not Out. In 1993, he presented a six-part archaeology TV series, The Dirt Detective, for STV, and was given a six-part TV series on BBC One, The Ferguson Theory, a mix of stand-up and sketches recorded the day before transmission.
Ferguson also found success in musical theatre. Beginning in 1991, he appeared on stage as Brad Majors in the London production of The Rocky Horror Show. In 1994, he played Father MacLean in production of Bad Boy Johnny and the Prophets of Doom at the Union Chapel in London. That year he appeared again at the Edinburgh Fringe, as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple.
After living and working in the United States for many years, in 2017, it was announced that he would return to UK television for the first time in 25 years in a guest role in BBC Scotland's comedy Still Game, to be shown in 2018.
In 2022, an adaptation of Ferguson's film Saving Grace was announced as a stage musical aimed for a 2023 run in West End, in which Ferguson will portray a "villainous banker". It was adapted by April De Angelis from Ferguson's and Mark Crowdy's screenplay, with music by KT Tunstall.
American career
Ferguson moved to Los Angeles in November 1994, after his soon-to-be agent Rick Siegel had seen Ferguson during the Edinburgh Festival and suggested that he come to America. His first American role was as baker Logan McDonough on the short-lived 1995 ABC comedy Maybe This Time, which starred Betty White and Marie Osmond.His breakthrough in the United States came when he was cast on The Drew Carey Show as the title character's boss, Mr. Wick, a role he played from 1996 to 2003. He played the role with an over-the-top posh English accent, explaining it was "to make up for generations of English actors doing crap Scottish accents." In his comedy special "A Wee Bit o' Revolution", he specifically identified James Doohan's portrayal of Montgomery Scott on Star Trek as the foundation of his "revenge". His character was memorable for his unique methods of laying employees off, almost always "firing Johnson", the most common last name of the to-be-fired workers. Even after leaving the show in 2003, he remained a recurring character on the series for the last two seasons, and was part of the two-part series finale in 2004.
During the production of The Drew Carey Show, Ferguson devoted his off-time as a cast member to writing, working in his trailer on set in between shooting his scenes. He wrote and starred in three films: The Big Tease, Saving Grace, and I'll Be There; he also directed the latter, for which he won the Audience Award for Best Film at the Aspen, Dallas, and Valencia film festivals. He was named Best New Director at the Napa Valley Film Festival. These were among other scripts that, "in the great tradition of the movie business, about half a dozen that I got paid a fortune for but never got made."
His other acting credits in films include Niagara Motel, Lenny the Wonder Dog, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Chain of Fools, Born Romantic, The Ugly Truth, Kick-Ass, and, as a voice-over actor, How to Train Your Dragon, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Brave, and Winnie the Pooh.
Ferguson has been touring the United States and Canada with a comedy show since the late 2000s, including a performance at Carnegie Hall on 23 October 2010 and a performance at Radio City Music Hall on 6 October 2012. He has performed two stand-up television specials on Comedy Central, both released on DVD: A Wee Bit o' Revolution in 2009 and Does This Need to Be Said? in 2011. His third comedy special, I'm Here to Help, was released on Netflix in 2013, garnering positive reviews of 4 out of 5 stars on Netflix and peaking at number 6 on Billboard top comedy albums. It also received a 2014 Grammy Award nomination for Best Comedy Album.
Ferguson was awarded the Peter Ustinov Comedy Award by the Banff World Media Festival on 11 June 2013.
''The Late Late Show''
In December 2004, it was announced that Ferguson would succeed Craig Kilborn on CBS's The Late Late Show. His first show as the regular host aired on 3 January 2005. The show was unique in that it had no "human" sidekicks such as Ed McMahon on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson or Conan O'Brien's Andy Richter. Beginning in 2010, a robotic skeleton named Geoff Peterson and two silent performers in a pantomime horse costume were added to the show. His monologues were conducted within a few feet of the camera versus the long distance Johnny Carson kept from the camera and audience.The Late Late Show averaged 2.0 million viewers in its 2007 season, compared with 2.5 million for Late Night with Conan O'Brien. In April 2008, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson beat Late Night with Conan O'Brien for weekly ratings for the first time since the two shows went head-to-head with their respective hosts.
In March 2009, Craig Ferguson topped Jimmy Fallon in the ratings with Ferguson getting a 1.8 rating and Fallon receiving a 1.6 rating. By 2014, Ferguson's ratings had faltered, trailing those of Late Night with Seth Meyers with an average of 1.35 million viewers versus 2.02 million.
On 28 April 2014, Ferguson announced he would leave The Late Late Show at the end of 2014, with the final episode airing on 19 December. His contract was set to expire in June 2014, but a six-month extension was agreed on to provide a more graceful exit and give CBS more time to find a replacement host. He reportedly received as part of his contract because he was not selected as the replacement for David Letterman's Late Show. Ferguson made the decision prior to Letterman's announcement but agreed to delay making his own decision public until the reaction to Letterman's decision had died down. CBS entertainment chair Nina Tassler said, following the announcement, that in his decade as host Ferguson had "infused the broadcast with tremendous energy, unique comedy, insightful interviews and some of the most heartfelt monologues seen on television." CBS continued the franchise with James Corden as the new host.