Meet the First Lady of Comedy

Evie Colbert and the Barista have something common. We've both been in the excrutiating predicament of sneaking over repeatedly to look at the bids at a local silent auction. In Evie's case, the auction was at an MKA fundraiser last year, and the prize was following her husband, Stephen Colbert, around for a day. "I was neurotic. Who's bidding on it?" she recalled Monday in an interview at Raymond's. "It didn't go for as much as SNL tickets, which made me mad."

Well, we're sure it would outdraw SNL this year, as the former Daily Show correspondent has broken into full-star status as the host of his own show, "The Colbert Report." (Comedy Central, Channel 49 on Comcast, Monday through Thursday at 11:30 pm)

But such is the life of the local media celebrity. The Colberts just donated four VIP tickets to the Colbert Report's taping to the 12 Miles West fundraiser Monday night. (Second prize: four VIP tickets to the Daily Show. Third prize: a custom-painted snow blower.) Evie kept up an extensive e-mail correspondence with us as she tried for months to find time in her husband's busy schedule for a Baristanet interview. Finally, rather than waiting for the Titan of Truthiness himself, we asked to do an interview with the lovely Mrs. Colbert. (And truthiness be told, we were a little scared of interviewing Himself.)

As everybody knows by now, Stephen Colbert lives in Montclair. In fact, in our "Thanks for the Memories" Baristanet poll of Dec. 31, our readers voted for Stephen Colbert's climb past Yogi and Bobbi as the top local celebrity as the #2 story of 2005. (The demolition of the Marlboro Inn was #1.) Evie did confess that she and her friends did kind of stuff the ballot box. (We're touched.)

Evie is, in fact, completely unintimidating -- despite her svelte figure, her famous husband, and her own acting career. She's attractive, but exactly in an MKA mom kind of way. She's warm, smart, candid and fun to be with. If we were holding a casting call for the role of new best friend, we'd ask her to audition. We don't think she'll have time, though. She's beginning to think about go on some real casting calls, and re-starting her only acting career.

What we learned. The Colberts put very strict limits on the TV watching of their three children, ages 10, 7 and 4: half an hour of screentime on weekdays, and that includes computer time too. They're cautious about letting their children watch the Report; they don't want their kids to think that Stephen never means what he says. Although Stephen and Evie used to stay up late to watch the show, she now TIVOs it and watches it the next morning. "We try to stay up, but it's too late," she admits. Despite his buttoned-up suited attire on-air, Colbert usually wears one of Evie's old University of Virginia sweatshirts to the office. And, get this, he works out at the Montclair Y just like the rest of us. The Colberts moved to Montclair five and a half years ago from Westchester, which was not only too expensive, but not diverse enough. Four other Montclairians, besides Colbert, work on the show. And, oh yeah, half the Charleston Colberts, including Stephen's mother, pronounce the last syllable of their name as if it were Dilbert. At least they did. With his fame, the French pronunciation is spreading.

If you should run into Stephen Colbert on the street: It's okay to nod and say you like his work. But don't be a jerk and interrupt him talking to someone else. So far, public recognition hasn't gotten out of hand -- "It's not so much that it's invasive," Evie says -- and she actually likes walking a few steps behind him sometimes, just to watch the expressions as people realize who he is. "I like to see the reactions. The college-age boys -- sometimes you think they're going to fall over."

How they met: The Colberts became attracted to one another in May of 1989, when they were both home in Charleston visiting family. Evie started flirting with him from across the room at a party, and although she'd known him slightly for years, she didn't realize it was her old acquaintance, Stephen Colbert, until she got closer. He looked pretty much like he does today, but with bigger glasses and a beard. He was doing an Ibsen play at the time, and they talked, among other things, about poetry. Their first date wasn't until December of that year, and for a long time they carried on a long-distance relationship by letter, until she finally moved from New York to Chicago to be near him.

Did he always make her laugh? You bet. But, as Evie Colbert told her sister shortly after the two started dating -- and we're sure viewers of "The Colbert Report" will never believe this -- "He talks about himself all the time."

Despite what you see on TV, it isn't all fun to be Stephen Colbert. You think it's easy playing a blustering right-wing idiot and filling half an hour of television all by yourself four days a week? Playing the right-wing idiot, yes. Filling the half hour every day, no.In the four months "The Colbert Report" has been on the air, Colbert's hair has begun to go gray at the temples. "He's so busy and he's so sleep deprived," Evie says. In the beginning, before there was time to stockpile any pieces, Colbert and his staff were writing practically up to airtime. Colbert's famous Truthiness segment, Evie says, was written about 4 o'clock in the afternoon the day the show first aired. Some of the pressure abated when Comedy Central picked up the show for a full year, and over his Christmas break, Colbert was able to record bits for later use.

Colbert, of course, is not the conservative blowhard he plays on TV, although, as Evie says, "He plays it really well. I tease him sometimes that he's wearing his character too close." Does he ever worry that he's stepped over the line, as with his taunting of anti-gun advocate James Brady in the first week of the show? Not so his wife can tell. "He's so courageous," she says proudly. "He's not concerned with making an idiot of himself." Now how many wives in Baristaville would brag about that?

Annette Batson (above, left) contributed to this story.