Actors - Tina Fey

Home > Listing Index > Actors > Tina Fey

	Actors - Tina Fey

Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey (born May 18, 1970) is an American writer, comedian, and actress. She is a cast member and co-head writer of Saturday Night Live
.

Early years

Fey was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, in what was a predominantly Greek-American and Italian American neighborhood. Her brother Peter remembers a drawing she did when she was about seven: it showed people holding hands, walking down the street with wedges of Swiss cheese. The caption read, "What a friend we have in cheeses!"

Fey was exposed to comedy early, saying: :"I remember my parents sneaking me in to see Young Frankenstein
. We would also watch Saturday Night Live
, or Monty Python or old Marx Brothers movies. My dad would let us stay up late to watch The Honeymooners. We were not allowed to watch The Flintstones, though, which my dad hated because it ripped off The Honeymooners. I actually have a very low level of Flintstones knowledge for someone my age."

Fey graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1988. She studied drama at the University of Virginia, graduating in 1992. After graduation, she moved to Chicago, getting a job at a residential YMCA by day so she could take classes at The Second City by night. She learned that the key to improvisation was to "focus entirely on your partner. You take what they're giving you and use it to build a scene."

By 1994 she was invited to join the cast of The Second City, where she performed in the Jeff Award-winning revue Paradigm Lost. She is also a veteran of The ImprovOlympic.

Saturday Night Live

With then-head writer Adam McKay's help, Fey became a writer for NBC's Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 1997. In 1999, Fey became SNL's first female head writer, a milestone she downplays by pointing out how few head writers the show has had.

Now co-head writer, she won a 2001 Writers Guild of America Award for the show's 25th anniversary special; she and the rest of the writing staff won an Emmy Award in 2002 for their work on the show.

In September 2005, she went on maternity leave, having given birth to a daughter, Alice Zenobia Richmond. Her "Weekend Update" role was covered by Horatio Sanz for several weeks before her return to the show on October 22, 2005, noting: :"I had to get back to work. NBC has me under contract; the baby and I only have a verbal agreement."

SNL sketches

Some recurring sketches written by Fey include:

Parodies of Live with Regis and Kelly and The View
The Girl with No Gaydar, cowritten by Rachel Dratch
Boston Teens, cowritten by Dratch

She is also credited with:

Colonel Angus, portrayed by Christopher Walken
in a sketch filled with word play on the colonel's name
Mom Jeans commercial
"Talkin 'Bout 'Ginas" (Parody of The Vagina Monologues)

Weekend Update

In 2000 Fey and Jimmy Fallon became co-anchors of SNL's Weekend Update, a pairing that ended in May 2004 when Fallon made his last appearance as a cast member. She now helms the satirical newscast with Amy Poehler. Horatio Sanz briefly took Fey's position in October 2005 before Fey returned from giving birth to her first child the previous month.

Fey's primary role on Weekend Update is as a performer, but she shares the duty of writing for the segment as well. She is also recognized by her trademark eyeglasses, which she says are worn only to assist in reading teleprompters.

Other work

She partnered with fellow cast member Rachel Dratch in the critically acclaimed two-woman show Dratch & Fey at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York City, the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, and the Chicago Improv Festival. Lorne Michaels saw her at one of the performances, which led to her becoming the co-anchor of SNL's Weekend Update.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Tina Fey ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Tina Fey; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.