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Samantha Bee

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Samantha Bee
Born1969
Occupation(s)actress, comedian
SpouseJason Jones

Samantha Bee (born 1969 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian actress and comedian best known as a correspondent for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Bee received a degree from the University of Ottawa, and studied science at McGill University in Montreal and acting at George Brown Theatre School in Toronto. She also performed with the sketch comedy troupe The Atomic Fireballs, of which she is one of four founding members, in Toronto before being hired by the award-winning Daily Show in 2003.

On The Daily Show, Bee has demonstrated an ability to coax people into caricaturing themselves — particularly in segments like "Kill Drill", on hunters and fossil-fuel executives claiming to be environmentalists; "They So Horny", on the dearth of Asian men in U.S. pornography; "Tropical Repression", on Ed Heeney, a Florida politician running his campaign based on opposition to gays and lesbians; "The Undecided", an over-the-top look at the infamous undecided voters leading up to the 2004 U.S. elections; and of course, "Samantha Bee's So You Wanna Bee A..." report series, which humorously caricatures the way in which one can easily obtain a certain job, like becoming a 527 group.

Bee played the title role in a live action production of Sailor Moon at the Canadian National Exhibition, and has had guest appearances on several television shows. She had her first starring role in a feature film in 2004 with the Canadian independent film Ham & Cheese, alongside veteran Canadian comics Scott Thompson and Dave Foley.

As of 2006, Bee is currently the only female correspondent on The Daily Show, although the show has had several others since its inception. She is The Daily Show's first non-U.S. citizen correspondent.

Bee was recognized with a 2005 Canadian Comedy Award for Best Female TV Performance for her work on The Daily Show.

She is married to actor and fellow Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones, lives in Manhattan, and frequently visits Canada, and has indicated her intention to work toward U.S. citizenship. In late 2005, Jones became a freelance Daily Show correspondent while Bee reduced her workload due to her pregnancy. In January 2006, the couple welcomed their first child, Piper Bee-Jones.

She returned to The Daily Show, to a great deal of cheering from the audience, in March 2006.

Miscellaneous

  • In December 2005 on The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly used a clip of Bee from The Daily Show as an example of "The War on Christmas," presenting it as having aired recently. The clip (a parody community events calendar) featured Bee mentioning how Christmas was the only religious holiday that's also a federal holiday in the United States, with O'Reilly quipping about "Secular Central...excuse me, Comedy Central". Jon Stewart discussed this on the air, claiming he couldn't recall doing that piece. Jon invited Bee out, and unlike the clip aired on Factor, Bee was visibly several months pregnant. Bee joked you could tell the footage O'Reilly aired was a year old (it originally aired in 2004) because she had slightly different highlights in her hair.
  • Bee is featured on the Daily Show flash game Newshunter 2:Beat the Press. If you win using Samantha, Jon says "And they say Canadians aren't good for anything. Oh wait, I say that. Well, I'm stopping that."