Tina Fey

Tina Fey (born May 18, 1970) is an American writer, comedian, and actress. She is the current head writer of Saturday Night Live.

Early years

She was born Elizabeth Tina Fey 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.

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 Second City; she is also a veteran of 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. Soon Fey would became SNL's first female head writer (in 1999) a milestone she downplays, 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 in 2002 for their work on the show.

SNL sketches

Some recurring sketches written by Fey include:

• Parodies of Live with Regis and Kelly and The View
• Parodies of the Sharon Osbourne Show, cowritten by Amy Poehler
• The Girl with No Gaydar, cowritten by Christopher Walken in a sketch filled with word play on the colonel's name
• Mom Jeans commercial
• 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.

Fey's primary role on Weekend Update is as performer, since most of the writing for the segment is done by three or four writers dedicated to the task.

Examples of Weekend Update jokes

• Despite explosive violence in the West Bank this week, negotiators remain hopeful that a U.S.-sponsored summit could end the conflict. Israeli and Palestinian officials say they are eager to sign an agreement so they can dip it in gasoline, light it on fire and throw it at each other.
• Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman say their split is amicable, and they want everyone to know that after the divorce is final, their two adopted children will be returned to the prop department at Universal Studios.
• New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is once again expressing outrage at an art exhibit, this time at a painting in which Jesus is depicted as a naked woman. Said the mayor, "This trash is not the sort of thing that I want to look at when I go to the museum with my mistress."
• In order to feel safer on his private jet, actor John Travolta has purchased a bomb-sniffing dog. Unfortunately for the actor, the dog came six movies too late.
• It was announced that Ricky Martin will perform at the Lincoln Memorial as part of President Bush's inauguration. Apparently, Mr. Bush's first step in restoring the dignity of the presidency is having a soap star sing She Bangs at the foot of the Great Emancipator.
• Gale Norton, President Bush's controversial nominee for Secretary of the Interior, told a Senate committee this week, 'I intend to make the conservation of America's national treasures my highest priority.' At the top of her list is the American Bald Oil Magnate.
• In Washington last week, officials from the National Rifle Association met with a group of 200 high school students. There were no survivors.
• On Monday, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a terrorism warning asking all Americans to be on high alert this week. Then on Friday he announced that the period of high alert will be extended indefinitely. I think I speak for all Americans when I say: Bitch, I can't be any more alert than I already am! Okay, I'm opening my mail with salad tongs, I take my passport into the shower with me. I'm watching so much CNN I'm having sex dreams about Wolf Blitzer. How 'bout this: you be on full alert. I'm gonna freeze my head like Walt Disney, and you can wake me up when everything's cool. Okay?
• Former pop singer Tiffany posed as the centerspread model for this month's issue of Playboy magazine. Tiffany, a devout Baptist, sat down with her young daughter and showed her a Cosmopolitan magazine saying "See honey? Mommy isn't nearly as classy as these ladies".
• According to a new study, women in satisfying marriages are less likely to develop cardiovascular diseases than unmarried women. So don't worry, lonely women, you'll be dead soon.
• ABC has declined to air a anti-war political advertisement produced by an online contest winner, stating that they have a policy against showing ads of that nature. Apparently, however, ABC has no problems with ads that deliver the message "Women are sluts for beer."
• Despite the fact that Martha Stewart has disgraced herself too much to hold an official position at Omnimedia, the company may still use her name and images to sell their products. You know, sort of like Clinton and the Democrats.

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.

She also appeared in Martin & Orloff, a surreal comedy which premiered at Austin's SXSW.

Fey wrote the script for and co-stars in the 2004 movie Mean Girls. Characters and behaviors in the movie were based on Fey's high school life and on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence (ISBN 0609609459), by Rosalind Wiseman. The cast includes other present and past cast members of SNL.

She is also developing a sitcom for NBC.