Samantha Jamie Bee is a Canadian-American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actress, and television host. She is a former correspondent of 'The Daily Show' and host of 'Full Frontal With Samantha Bee.'
Background
Ethnicity:
Samantha has Irish, English, and at least 1/16th French ancestry.
Bee was born in Toronto, Ontario, the daughter of Debra and Ronald Bee. She has said of her family: "Dating from well before the turn of the 20th century, if there has ever been a successful, happy marriage in my family lineage, I've yet to hear about it." Bee's parents split up soon after her birth, and she was initially raised by her grandmother, who worked as a secretary at the Catholic school.
Education
Bee attended the Catholic school, on Roncesvalles Avenue during her childhood. She attended Humberside Collegiate Institute and York Memorial Collegiate Institute.
After graduating from high school, Bee attended McGill University, where she studied humanities. Dissatisfied with a range of issues at the school, she transferred to the University of Ottawa after her first year. At the University of Ottawa, Bee signed up for a theatre class thinking it would be easy. The class led to Bee discovering her love of performing. Bee later enrolled in the George Brown Theatre School in Toronto.
Bee began her career acting in commercials and performing with The Atomic Fireballs, an all-female comedy troupe.
Bee got her big break when she became a correspondent on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart in 2003. “It was my favorite show, and I just trained for it like I was an Olympian, honestly. I ate salmon every day, I was like, ‘Brain food!’ ” Bee told People magazine about her Daily Show audition. She became the longest-serving correspondent on The Daily Show and the only female correspondent until 2008, when Kristen Schaal joined the team.
In 2015, Bee announced she'd be leaving The Daily Show to host her own news comedy show on TBS called Full Frontal With Samantha Bee. Full Frontal premiered in February 2016 and earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series. Bee has the distinct honor of being the first female host of a late-night satirical news show. That same year, she interviewed President Barack Obama for her show's Halloween Special. During the interview, she asked the president to tell her a spooky story about the then upcoming election. Obama replied, “Donald Trump would be president.”
In between various TV projects and appearing in film, Bee penned the memoir, I Know I Am, But What Are You? in 2010.
Bee became a US citizen in 2014, while retaining her Canadian citizenship.
Her upbringing was done in a Catholic environment.
Politics
Samantha Bee, a 47-year-old Canadian-born dual-citizen of Canada and the US, has been called the “comedian of the resistance” in the Donald Trump era. It is not a position she applied for, nor one she is especially happy to have assumed. When her weekly topical show, Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, first aired on the US cable channel TBS in February 2016, in the process making her the first woman to host a late-night political satire, she imagined she would be overseeing the run-in to a Hillary Clinton presidency. Then, from her perspective, the unthinkable happened.
On Monday night, the “Full Frontal“ host wondered why right-wing Christians had ignored a ready-made presidential candidate in Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the son of a preacher whose campaign was based on a Bible passage, and opted to support Donald Trump, who she described as a “thrice-married, foul-mouthed tit judge.”
Trump’s victory has forced all the late-night comedy shows to take stock, but it is Bee, formerly a correspondent on The Daily Show for a record 12 years, who seems to have adapted best. She is withering in her dismay at “that pint of flat orange Fanta”, as she’s called Trump, and “the batshit telenovela” that is his administration.
Views
Samantha Bee explained how the origin of the politically active religious right can be traced to a love for segregation and a fear of the black man.
Bee demonstrates the rise of the religious right can be traced back to an anti-segregation measure proposed in 1978 by the IRS to revoke tax exemptions for private schools whose admissions discriminate by race, explaining:
"To understand how we got there, we have to go back to origins of the new religious right… It wasn’t abortion that birthed the religious right. It was good old white Nativism and anti-government anger when the IRS challenged evangelicals’ god given right to go to school without black people."
Samantha Bee is a feminist.
Quotations:
"You have to be willing to ask questions that almost no one else would ask."
"There are some people who believe that these are not real stories with real people, but they actually are."
"The one thing I can do that makes me appropriate for this job is that I am able to keep a straight face under almost any circumstances."
"Last year people won more than one billion dollars playing poker. And casinos made twenty-seven billion just by being around those people."
"It's not every day people fly you to New York for auditions."
"It's great when you have people who will speak passionately and honestly about what they are doing."
"It was only a few years ago that I couldn't get hired to save my life."
"It doesn't always click for people or they don't know the show - which I can't imagine - but there are people out there who don't."
"I was totally unknown in the television and film industry in Canada."
"I think the show does better with newsmakers and politicians than it does with actors."
"I think NASCAR's coming to Canada now so it'll take on a whole new relevance. Be afraid."
"I never believe them when they say that because you really have to sort of be aware of what's going on in the news in order to get the jokes on the show."
"I learn something in the interviews from time to time."
"I don't think the show would be funny to you if you didn't already have a base of information."
"A lot of funny stuff happens in Canada."
"Don't judge me. I made a lot of money."
Personality
She loves Mexican food.
Physical Characteristics:
Height - 5 ft 7 in
Weight - 63 kg
Interests
Politicians
Hillary Clinton
Artists
Bee has credited Jon Stewart as one of her major influences, and in several interviews she has said that her other comedic influences include Steve Martin, David Letterman, Mary Tyler Moore, Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Betty White, and Joan Rivers.
Connections
In 2001, Bee married actor Jason Jones, whom she first met in 1996. They reside in Manhattan, New York. In January 2006, she gave birth to Piper Bee-Jones; she returned to The Daily Show in March 2006. On January 24, 2008, Bee announced a second pregnancy on air during a bit about the media's coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign. In 2008, their second child, Fletcher Bee-Jones, was born. Their third child, a daughter named Ripley, was born in late 2010. During her third pregnancy, Bee joked she and Jones were "just procreating like we're farmers."