CONANDRUM
Eras / Timeline
1960s-1970s
Conan Christopher O'Brien was born on April 18, 1963, in Brookline, Massachusetts, to a physician father and attorney mother. He attended Brookline High School, where he edited the school newspaper and interned for Congressmen Robert Drinan and Barney Frank, graduating as valedictorian in 1981.
1980s
O'Brien attended Harvard University, majoring in history and literature and serving as president of the Harvard Lampoon, graduating magna cum laude in 1985. After college he moved to Los Angeles to write for HBO's Not Necessarily the News and the short-lived Wilton North Report, before Lorne Michaels hired him as a writer for Saturday Night Live in 1988, where he stayed until 1991.
1990s
O'Brien wrote for The Simpsons from 1991 to 1993, penning acclaimed episodes like "Marge vs. the Monorail," before being chosen to host Late Night, which premiered in September 1993 to poor reviews and near-cancellation threats. Over the decade the show steadily built a following through sketches and narrative-driven remotes, and O'Brien married Liza Powel in 2002 after meeting her in 2000 (though they'd been dating since around 2000-2001).
2000s
Late Night continued its long, successful run, with O'Brien and his wife having two children (born 2003 and 2005), founding the anti-hunger nonprofit Labels Are For Jars, and enduring a years-long stalking ordeal by a former priest that ended with a 2008 guilty plea. The decade closed with NBC's plan for O'Brien to succeed Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, which he finally took over in June 2009.
2010s
After a brief, contentious seven-month run on The Tonight Show ended in a highly publicized departure and $45 million settlement in early 2010, O'Brien staged a national comedy tour (documented in Conan O'Brien Can't Stop) before launching Conan on TBS in November 2010, which ran for over a decade. During this period he traveled internationally for the Emmy-winning Conan Without Borders series, was ordained to officiate a same-sex wedding on air, and in 2018 launched the podcast Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.
2020s
Conan ended its TBS run in June 2021 after nearly 30 years of O'Brien hosting late-night television, and he shifted focus to podcasting and travel projects, including the HBO Max series Conan O'Brien Must Go (2024). He received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2025, hosted the Academy Awards in 2025 and 2026 (with a third hosting stint set for 2027), was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame, took on his first dramatic film role, received an honorary Harvard doctorate in 2026, and partnered with a cybersecurity company on an educational training series.