TINA FEY


'Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey' (born May 18, 1970) is an American writer, comedian and an Emmy-winning actress. Fey currently co-produces, writes and stars in the television program ''30 Rock'', a sitcom loosely based on her experiences at ''Saturday Night Live''.[1][2]

Contents
Early life
Career
''Saturday Night Live''
''SNL'' sketches
''Weekend Update''
Celebrity impressions
''30 Rock''
Other work
Fey in popular culture
Personal life
References
External links

Early life


Fey was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, daughter of Jeanne, a brokerage employee, and Donald Fey, a university grant writer.[3] Fey's father has German and Scottish ancestry and her mother is Greek American.[4] 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!"4
Fey was exposed to comedy early, saying:
Her dream to entertain first was at Philadelphia Phillies baseball games, as she wanted to become a ball girl.
Fey attended Cardington Elementary School and Beverly Hills Middle School.[5] By middle school she knew she was interested in comedy, even doing an independent study project on the subject in eighth grade.6 She graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1988.5

Career


After Fey graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Drama in 1992, she moved to Chicago, getting a day job at a residential YMCA to take night classes at The Second City. She made what she later described as an "amateurish" attempt at stand-up comedy,[6] and 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."[7]
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. By 1999, Fey was ''SNL's first female head writer, a milestone she downplays in light of the fact that there have not been that many head writers.[8]
As co-head writer of ''SNL's 25th anniversary special, Fey won a 2001 Writers Guild of America Award. She and the writing staff also won a 2002 Emmy Award for their work on the show.
In September 2005, she went on maternity leave after giving 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, at which time she noted:
:"I had to get back to work. NBC has me under contract; the baby and I only have a verbal agreement."[9]
Fey confirmed during a July 2006 ''Tonight Show'' appearance that she would not be returning to ''SNL'' for its 2006-7 season.[10]
''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'')

★ "Old French Whore!" (game show parody with teens paired with old French prostitutes)

★ "Census" (Tim Meadows questions a clueless Christopher Walken)
''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 last appeared as a cast member. (Fey also was co-writer of the ''Weekend Update'' segment). Fallon was replaced by Amy Poehler. It was the first time that two women co-anchored ''Weekend Update''.
Celebrity impressions


★ Ashleigh Banfield

★ Barbara Pierce Bush

★ Bea Arthur

★ Janice Dickinson

★ Kathleen Willey

★ Mary Ann Mobley

★ Paris Hilton

★ Paula Zahn

★ Vanna White

★ Paula Abdul

★ Robin Williams

★ Brittany Murphy
''30 Rock''

Fey developed a sitcom, ''30 Rock'', for NBC's fall 2006 schedule.2 The show is produced by NBC and Broadway Video, with Lorne Michaels and two former producers of ''The Tracy Morgan Show'', David Miner, who is also her manager at 3 Arts, and Joann Alfano.[11] She also writes and stars in the sitcom, said to be based on her experiences at ''SNL''.1 The show's title is a reference to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where ''SNL'' is produced.
The show debuted to mostly positive reviews; however, ratings for its original timeslot on Wednesdays at 8 PM were weak. Rather than cancel the show, NBC moved the show into a revamped Thursday Must See TV comedy lineup at the end of November sweeps. After its first episode in its new Thursday 9:30 PM timeslot on November 30, 2006, the network picked up the show for the entire season.[12]
NBC has renewed the series for a second season. In July 2007, Fey was nominated for an Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series Emmy for her role as Liz Lemon.
Other work

In 1997 Tina recorded the voices for the British and German princesses for Williams' "Medieval Madness" pinball machine.
She partnered with fellow cast member Rachel Dratch in the critically acclaimed[13] 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''.
SNL's popular ''Boston Teens'' sketch originated at Second City in Chicago. Tina played Rachel Dratch's mother.
She also appeared in ''Martin & Orloff'', a surreal comedy which premiered at Austin's SXSW.
She was ranked #80 on the ''Maxim'' Hot 100 Women of 2002.[14]
Fey wrote the script and co-starred in the 2004 movie ''Mean Girls''. Characters and behaviors in the movie are based on Fey's high school life[15] at Upper Darby High School and on the non-fiction book ''Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence'' (ISBN 0-609-60945-9) by Rosalind Wiseman. The cast includes other present and past cast members of ''SNL'' including Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, and Amy Poehler.
As of April 2006, Fey is working on a script for a Paramount Pictures film by the name of ''Curly Oxide and Vic Thrill'' that is said to be based loosely on the true story of a Hasidic rock musician.
Slated for 2008 is ''Baby Mama'', Fey's collaboration with former ''Saturday Night Live'' castmate Amy Poehler. The plot revolves around a business woman, Fey, who wants a child, but is busy with a career, and decides to find a surrogate (Poehler).
In 2007, Fey was listed among ''Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.

Fey in popular culture


On the August 12, 2007, edition of Speed TV's ''The Speed Report'', co-host Nicole Manske stated that she was in her "Tina Fey moment" when she could not get her contact lenses in prior to the start of the show, resulting in Manske having to wear glasses similar to what Fey wore during her ''Saturday Night Live'' "Weekend Update" reports from 2000 to 2006.
Fey is the inspiration for the song "Tina Fey," by the band Okay Thursday on their 2006 album ''Fun in Flats''.
In the ''Will & Grace'' episode "The Blonde Leading the Blind," Karen gets glasses, and her maid, Rosario, says, "You look like the lovely and talented Tina Fey."

Personal life


Tina Fey is married to Jeff Richmond, a composer on ''SNL''. They met before their jobs on ''SNL'' and dated for seven years before marrying in a Greek Orthodox[16] ceremony on June 3, 2001. They have a daughter, Alice Zenobia Richmond, who was born on September 10, 2005 in New York.[17][18]
There is also a fair amount of speculation about the lengthy scar on Tina's left cheek. She has been repeatedly asked about it, and has consistently declined to give details; other than to say it happened when she was a child. In a ''NY Times'' article (November 25, 2001), Tina was quoted as saying: "It's a childhood injury that was kind of grim. And it kind of bums my parents out for me to talk about it."

References


1. Who's on First: Shows about Shows, an April 2006 article from ''The New Yorker''
2. NBC Announces 2006-07 Primetime Schedule, a May 15, 2005 NBC press release via ComingSoon.net
3. Tina Fey Biography (1970-)
4. Virginia Heffernan. Anchor Woman. ''The New Yorker''. 11 November 2003. Retrieved 6 April 2006.
5. Fey's Biography from the Upper Darby High School Wall of Fame
6. Interview with Tina Fey by The A.V. Club. Published 1 November 2006.
7. The Believer, November 2003. Retrieved 7 February 2006.
8. George Everit. Article from SuicideGirls Retrieved 26 December 2006
9. New Mom Fey Returns to 'SNL'. Zap2it. 20 October 2005. Retrieved 7 February 2006.
10. Tina Fey Leaving ''Saturday Night Live'' for Prime-Time Comedy Show, a July 2006 Associated Press article via Fox News
11.
12. Article from Zap2it.com Retrieved 2 December 2006.
13. Katie Watson. Article from Saturday-Night-Live.com Retrieved 26 December 2006
14. FreeJose.com
15. http://www.blackfilm.com/20040423/features/tinafey.shtml
16. http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/04/28/showbuzz/index.html
17. AP. SNL Star Tina Fey Gives Birth to a Girl. 1 October 2005. Retrieved 7 February 2006.
18. Darel Jevens. From the 'SNL' Update desk: Fey a new mom. Chicago Sun-Times. 13 September 2005. Retrieved 7 February 2006.

External links



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