Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson (born 17 May 1962) is a Scottish-American comedian, actor, writer, and television host. He is best known for hosting the CBS late-night talk show The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014), for which he won a Peabody Award for his interview with South African archbishop Desmond Tutu in 2009.
For the hockey player, see Craig Ferguson (ice hockey).Craig Ferguson
Bing Hitler[1]
17 May 1962
Springburn, Glasgow, Scotland
1980–present
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Anne Hogarth(m. 1983; div. 1986)
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Sascha Corwin(m. 1998; div. 2004)
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Megan Wallace-Cunningham(m. 2008)
2
Lynn Ferguson (sister)
After leaving The Late Late Show in December 2014, he hosted the syndicated game show Celebrity Name Game (2014–2017), for which he won two Daytime Emmy Awards, and Join or Die with Craig Ferguson (2016) on History.[2] In 2017, he released a six-episode web show with his wife, Megan Wallace Cunningham, titled Couple Thinkers.[3][4] In 2021, he hosted The Hustler, television game show that aired on ABC from 4 January to 23 September 2021.
After starting his career in the UK with music, comedy, and theatre, Ferguson moved to the US, where he appeared in the role of Nigel Wick on the ABC sitcom The Drew Carey Show (1996–2004). Ferguson has written three books: Between the Bridge and the River, a novel; American on Purpose (2009), a memoir; and Riding the Elephant: A Memoir of Altercations, Humiliations, Hallucinations & Observations (2019). 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, he had provided the voices of Gobber in the How to Train Your Dragon film series (2010–2019), Owl in Winnie the Pooh (2011), and Lord Macintosh in Brave (2012).
Early life and education[edit]
Ferguson was born on 17 May 1962 in Stobhill Hospital in the Springburn community district of Glasgow, to Robert (1930 – 2006),[5] a post office worker and Scottish Nationalist[6] and Janet Ferguson (1933 – 2008),[7] a primary school teacher[8][9][10] When he was 6 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".[11][12] They lived there as Cumbernauld was rehousing many Glaswegians away from the poor housing conditions and damage to the city from World War II.[12] Ferguson attended Muirfield Primary School[13] and Cumbernauld High School.[14] 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.[15] Ferguson has two sisters (one older and one younger) and one older brother.[16] 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.[17]
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.[18] When he moved to New York City in 1983, he worked in construction in Harlem.[19][20] He was later a bouncer at the nightclub Save the Robots before returning to Scotland.[21]
Career[edit]
UK career[edit]
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.[22] Following that, he joined punk band The Bastards from Hell, later renamed the Dreamboys, and fronted by vocalist and future actor Peter Capaldi. They performed regularly in Glasgow from 1980 to 1982.[23] Ferguson credits Capaldi for inspiring him to try comedy.[11] 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.[22]
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,"[11] using the name "Bing Hitler" borrowed from Peter Capaldi.[23] 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 (which he co-wrote with Capaldi),[24] he said, "You can't write for just one character forever."[25] A recording of his act as Bing Hitler was made at Glasgow's Tron Theatre and released in the 1980s;[26] a Bing Hitler monologue ("A Lecture for Burns Night") appears on the compilation cassette Honey at the Core.[27]
After enjoying success at the Edinburgh Festival,[28] Ferguson appeared on television as 'Confidence' in Red Dwarf, on STV's Hogmanay Shows,[29] 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.[30] In 1991, Channel 4 asked him to host Friday at the Dome, a 75-minute live music show.[31] In 1992, he was given his own BBC Scotland show, 2000 Not Out.[32] In 1993, he presented a six-part archaeology TV series, The Dirt Detective, for STV,[33][34] 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.[35][36]
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.[37] 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.[38]
After living and working in the US for many years, in 2017, it was announced that he would return to UK television for the first time in 25 years[39] in a guest role in BBC Scotland's comedy Still Game, to be shown in 2018.[40]
In 2022, an adaptation of Ferguson's film Saving Grace (2000) 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.[41]
Personal life[edit]
He holds an FAA private pilot certificate, issued in 2009.[88] Ferguson has been a vegan since 2013.[89] A recovering alcoholic, he has been sober since 1992.[90][91]
During his early career, Ferguson resided in St John's Wood, London.[92][93]
Ferguson has been married three times and divorced twice. His first marriage was to Anne Hogarth from 1983 to 1986, during which time they lived in New York. His second marriage was to Sascha Corwin (founder and proprietor of Los Angeles' SpySchool), with whom he has one child, born in 2001. He and Corwin shared custody of their child, and lived near each other in the Hollywood Hills. Ferguson married art dealer Megan Wallace-Cunningham in a private ceremony on her family's farm in Chester, Vermont in 2008.[94] They have a son together, who was born in 2011.[95]
Ferguson wrote in his book American on Purpose that he and actress Helen Atkinson-Wood were in a romantic relationship that lasted five years. He acknowledges that she changed his life "beyond recognition" by improving his health and his career.[96][84]
Ferguson has stated that his comedy influences include Monty Python, Marx Brothers, The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy[97] and David Letterman.[98]
Ferguson became an American citizen on 1 February 2008 and broadcast the taking of his citizenship test as well as his swearing in on The Late Late Show.[99][100][101]
In 2011, Ferguson bought Bargany House.[102][103]