Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 10, 1993 TAG: 9305080159
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JANET CAWLEY KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Swelling with mock pride, O'Brien responded: "Relatively unknown? Sir, I'm COMPLETELY unknown."
Not for much longer.
As a brace of NBC executives beamed, the lanky, 30-year-old wunderkind showed he could parry reporters' questions with aplomb and wit. And almost always, he was his own best target.
Asked how much he'd be making, O'Brien looked downcast. "Let's just say I'm going to have to get a day job. . . . I don't want to get into specifics because it's extremely embarrassing. Let's just say NBC has bought me the only three suits that I now own."
When a reporter wanted to know how his life has changed, O'Brien said, "I'm now familiar with every bad picture of me ever taken." He also said he's now occasionally recognized by people on the street who say, "Hey, you're that show guy. Hey, I know you, you're that minor talent."
Actually, while nobody was questioning O'Brien's comedic talent, his background is almost devoid of talk show host credentials. A former writer for "Saturday Night Live," he was a writer and producer for "The Simpsons" when the big call came.
His selection as Letterman's replacement seemed about as likely as Don Calhoun sinking a basket from 71 feet to win $1 million at a Bulls game.
Named to take over Letterman's late night slot just a week ago, O'Brien made his press debut at the ritzy Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center.
There were a couple things he wanted to straighten out, he said, standing at a podium in a conservative dark suit. His name is pronounced Conan, not Con-AN. Despite reports that he is anywhere from 6'5" to 6'8" tall, "I'm not radioactive. I'm not growing out of control. I'm six-four."
Where did his name come from?
"My dad got liquored up shortly after I was born. . . . I think it's like a Gaelic word for wide face or something."
With light red hair and a cherubic face periodically transformed by flashes of sheer mischief, O'Brien resembles a choir boy gone bad.
One of six children of a physician father and lawyer mother, he grew up outside Boston, in Brookline, and graduated from Harvard University, where he starred at the famous Harvard Lampoon humor magazine.
O'Brien's few moments of serious press conference contemplation, if it could be called that, seemed to come when he was asked - repeatedly - to describe the format of the new show, scheduled to debut in August.
He said he wants a "creative environment" where "we can experiment and try things" but he offered no specifics on guests, a potential sidekick or band or even whether he would open with a monologue.
At one point, he joked, "My three brothers are going to help out. We're doing this thing in a barn."
Asked if doing a show like this had been a lifetime dream, O'Brien retorted, "Initially I wanted to be a kickboxer." Later he grew serious, enough to observe, "There's something almost frightening about getting exactly what you want."
While he hadn't yet met Letterman face-to-face, O'Brien said, the gap-toothed talk show host who has defected to CBS "called a couple days ago" and "could not have been classier (or) nicer."
Under Letterman, the late night show brought in about $70 million annually and was watched nightly by about 2.5 million households. How it will do under O'Brien is anyone's guess.
NBC executives are gambling that the show will capture a hip, young audience in the same age group as O'Brien, who, to put the age range in perspective, was born the same year John Kennedy was assassinated.
by CNB