Michael Starr

Michael Starr

TV

10 things you didn’t know about Stephen Colbert

OK, so we now know that Stephen Colbert will replace David Letterman on the “Late Show” when Dave retires next year (date to be determined).

We also know that Colbert has hosted Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report” for nine years in the guise of his alter-ego character, Stephen Colbert (a sendup of GOP pundits) — but that he’ll drop that character and be himself when he joins CBS in 2015.

But what else do we know about the real Stephen Colbert? Really very little, since he doesn’t do many interviews and hasn’t broken character too many times since finding fame on Comedy Central.

Here, then, are “10 Things You Didn’t Know” about Stephen Colbert:

1. He was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in Charleston, SC.

2. He turns 50 on May 13.

3. He’s the youngest of 11 children (seven brothers, three sisters).

4. His middle name is Tyrone.

Stephen Colbert appears on “Late Show with David Letterman.”Reuters

5. He’s deaf in his right ear after undergoing childhood surgery for a perforated eardrum.

6. His father, a doctor, and two of his brothers were killed in a plane crash on Sept. 11, 1974.

7. He transferred to Northwestern University after two years at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia.

8. Other members of his family pronounce their surname Colbert, using the hard “t” at the end.

9. He lives in North Jersey (Montclair) with his wife, Evelyn McGee-Colbert, and their three children, Madeleine, Peter and John.

10. Evelyn McGee-Colbert played his mother in an episode of Comedy Central’s “Strangers with Candy.”