By Verne Gay--Newsday
March 26, 2004
For a 6-foot-5 blond guy with a mean hook shot and an unusual taste for the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim, there is still something distinctly normal about Craig Kilborn.
Yes, CBS' late-late-night guy is tall, but, in the manner of a lot of tall guys, he walks with the slightest stoop (perhaps to directly meet the gaze of those more vertically challenged). That lanky frame is accessorized with cream-colored hair, which on a recent visit to New York looked like it had been razzed by a frantic squirrel. He had a five-day stubble on his face and had neglected to shave, not because he had hoped to be mistaken for a Calvin Klein model but because the show was "dark" that week and, well, he had forgotten to. He also wore glasses, loose-fitting clothes, and gave a wonderful impression of someone who just had a late night out and would prefer not to deal with sunlight, thank you very much.
A fifth birthday
After five years of "Late Late Show"-Kilborn will celebrate the birthday early Friday morning (WCBS/2 at 12:35 a.m.)- it's nice to see some old prejudices debunked. In person, Kilborn is not the conceited jerk that much of the press had decided he was back when he launched "Late Late Show" on March 30, 1999. And one suspects that he really truly does share the same great passions and concerns of his mostly young, mostly male audience: basketball, women, cars, perfectly blended martinis and (a pleasant eccentricity) finding exactly the right kitchen tile for his hacienda-style house perched high in the Hollywood Hills.
In a recent phone interview, Kilborn tells a story that is not meant to be self-deprecating but is anyway: He's driving down a freeway in some hot little number when suddenly he's stopped in traffic. A dude in the next car over looks at him and exclaims, "Hey! I loved you in 'Old School!'"- the 2003 movie in which Kilborn had a memorable cameo. Mr. Late Night then adds ruefully, "I get more compliments for that than the show."
Not that Kilborn, 41, is self-deprecating, self-loathing, acerbic, regretful, bitter, ironic, angry, postmodern or any of those other things that comics (and late-night hosts) are supposed to be. The exact opposite: He's a blissfully untortured soul from Hastings, Minn., who could have played pro basketball in Italy and ended up making millions of dollars hosting a late-night show instead. The punch line: Five years later, he's still doing it!
Yup, it's a great life, and who the heck wouldn't love it?
"It's ok to be self-confident," says Kilborn. "We have enough of the other type" of late-night hosts. He adds by clarification, "We say 'self-confident' around here. We don't say 'conceited.'"
After five years, Kilborn clearly is doing something right. "Late Late Show" was seen by 1.84 million viewers in February, 3 percent more than at the same time last year and about 250,000 more viewers than in 2001. "Late Late Show" has accomplished this in a particularly hostile environment, with ABC's January 2003 launch of "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and the resurgence of NBC's "Late Night With Conan O'Brien."
'Good luck,' they said
Vinnie Favale, CBS vice president of late night, adds this perspective: "[David] Letterman invented the 12:30 show...and so, 'Good luck to the guy who does it after Dave leaves.' Well, guess what? Conan has been able to do what Dave did, and then [they said], 'Good luck to the third guy. No way that's going to happen.' Well, I'm sorry, but Kilborn made a 12:30 show that's unique from the two that came before him."
Indeed, unique and retro at the same time. After five years- and four executive producers, feeding an impression that the host may not be the easiest guy in the world after all-Kilborn has evolved into a highly stylized version of his late-night hero, Johnny Carson: glib, smooth and adroit. As host, he's also a reasonably good listener, which is a nice attribute for talk show types but a surprisingly rare one.
Even so, in "Late Late Show" land there are niggling little concerns. Critical praise remains elusive, while "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" is widely considered the de facto standard of quality in late-late-night TV. Conan gets the glorious press. Craig gets the guy hailing him while stuck in traffic.
Kilborn insists-though not quite convincingly-that he's unconcerned by the absense of critical plaudits. People told him when he started the job that the public (and press) attention would be "all about Leno and Letterman, and I said that's OK. I thoroughly enjoy the show, but some of the staffers would life more attention. But everyone has their problems. Leno is not respected by the critics, and Dave is losing in the ratings. Well, if mine is that we're overlooked or ignored, that's OK. It's not the worst thing in the world."
"The truth is, television today is not exactly a popularity contest," says Rob Burnett, Kilborn's boss and president of Letterman's production company, Worldwide Pants. "You're much better off having a certain number of people feeling passionately about you, and this goes for Dave as well. You don't want to be vanilla ice cream, but you're much better off being some strange pistachio flavor people absolutely must have."
And Craigger's unique flavor? "He's a bit of a throwback. In a way, Craig should have been in the Rat Pack," Burnett says.
