Late Bloomer

But his public profile remains low—he's still best-known for his eight-year tenure as the abrasive boss Mr. Wick on "The Drew Carey Show." Ferguson is not at all resentful of his B-list status among the men of late night. "I'm just fortunate to be here," he says, and not in the way celebrities say that when they lose at awards shows and try to contain their bile. He comes across off-screen just as he does on—charismatic, down-to-earth, weirdly normal. The jocular rapport he creates with his guests isn't confined to the set. His fear-of-flying dinner with Russell wasn't a fluke; it was business as usual. On a recent show, a chat with actress Parker Posey devolved from a conversation about her last project into a flirtatious argument about why they fell out of touch. "Pardon us just a moment," he told the audience, as they bickered quietly about whether he was supposed to call her or vice versa. "I think he's a throwback to the talk-show hosts who talked and listened," says New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, a repeat guest/dinner companion, and who referred him for the correspondents' dinner. "The listening part seems to have gone out of style, when hosts are looking for a young demographic. Craig is curious, charming and witty, and that has restored the conversation that had been missing from late night."

The challenge now is for Ferguson to become the topic of conversation. He seems perfectly happy with his rung on the ladder, but no one in show business minds a little extra attention. Earlier this month, in a heartening reversal of fortune, his ratings numbers edged ahead of Conan O'Brien's for the first time. Perhaps the correspondents' dinner will provide an extra jolt. Or maybe it'll just be a lark. "I'm only doing this because I'm vain, and because I want to be the center of attention in a room of high-powered drunks," he says. "The vast majority of the people in the room probably won't even know my name." Perhaps for now.

© 2008