Bio
William J. Carter
William J. Carter joined The New York Times as a national media reporter in 1989. In addition to his work for the newspaper, he has written numerous articles for The New York Times Magazine, including four cover stories.
Mr. Carter has covered the television
industry for more than 25 years. From 1975 until 1989, he was a television critic for The Baltimore Sun, writing four to six columns, reports and features per week, as well as a weekly television sports column. From 1973 to 1975, Mr. Carter was assistant foreign editor at The Sun, substituting at times as foreign editor, national editor and news editor.
Mr. Carter's articles have also appeared in TV Guide, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Newsday, Advertising
Age, The Washington Journalism Review and Electronic Media. He has been a guest on many television and radio programs including "Nightline," "Today," "Good Morning
America," "The Larry King Show," ESPN Sports Century and The MSNBC News
with Brian Williams.
Mr. Carter is the author of the 1994 best-selling book, The Late
Shift: Letterman, Leno and the Network Battle for the Night. He is also the co-author of Monday Night Mayhem: The Inside Story of ABC's Monday Night Football.
Tracy Morgan
Tracy Morgan is currently starring on NBC's Emmy and Golden Globe Award-
winning "30 Rock," opposite Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin as "Tracy Jordan," the
unpredictable star of Lemon's (Fey) hit variety show, "TGS with Tracy Jordan."
Last year Mr. Morgan received his first Emmy Nomination for this role, in the Supporting Actor category; he has in three past years also been nominated for a Supporting Actor NAACP Image Award. The "30 Rock" cast won in 2009 the Screen Actors Guild Award for
"Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series."
This year has been another busy one for Mr. Morgan. First up was Kevin Smith's "Cop Out," in which he starred with Bruce Willis as two cops given the grim tasks of locating a stolen baseball
card to pay for a wedding, rescuing a kidnapped woman, and combating gangsters whose main goals are laundering money and elevating the death count in Brooklyn.
In April, he starred in the comedy "Death at a Funeral" for Screen Gems. The film, a remake of the 2007 British movie of the same name, also featured Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Zoe Saldana and Danny Glover. The independent romantic comedy feature, "Nailed," (from
David O. Russell) in which Mr. Morgan also appears, alongside Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal, will be released later in 2010.
Next up, Mr. Morgan tackles the drama
"The Son of No One" with Al Pacino and Juliette Binoche. Currently in production, the film is due out in 2011.
Last summer Mr. Morgan made his animation debut lending his voice for Jerry Bruckheimer's "G-Force," a combination live-action/CG film. He starred as "Blaster," one of the highly trained secret agent guinea pigs dispatched to save the world. The film opened number one in US box offices and was celebrated by audiences worldwide.
Another milestone for Mr. Morgan was reached in 2009 with the release of
his first book, a compilation of studied anecdotes and some of the more serious moments that shaped him and his career entitled I Am The New Black.
He also headlined the famed "New York Comedy Festival" which featured acclaimed comedians including Bill
Maher, Andy Samberg, and Patton Oswalt, among others. As a stand-up comic who has
headlined across the country, Mr. Morgan was first introduced to television audiences in his role as "Hustleman" on the hit comedy series "Martin."
He went on to join "Saturday Night Live" in 1996 where he appeared for seven seasons and created such memorable
characters as "Astronaut Jones" and "Brian Fellows."
After leaving SNL, he went on
to star in his own comedy series "The Tracy Morgan Show" and voiced "Spoonie Luv" on Comedy Central's "Crank Yankers." Additional film credits include: "Superhero
Movie," "First Sunday," "The Longest Yard," "Little Man," "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" and "Head of State." Mr. Morgan currently resides in New York City.
Encyclopædia Britannica Article
- comedy
Genre of dramatic literature that deals with the light and amusing or with the serious and profound in a light, familiar, or satirical manner. Comedy can be traced to revels associated with worship in Greece in the 5th century BC. Aristophanes, Menander, Terence, and Plautus produced comedies in classical literature. It reappeared in the late Middle Ages, when the term was used to mean simply a story with a happy ending (e.g., Dante's Divine Comedy), the same meaning it has in novels of the last three centuries (e.g., the fiction of Jane Austen). Compare tragedy.
- comedy on britannica.com
© 2010 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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