Tina Fey extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, distributed under the GNU Free Documentation License

Tina Fey
Fey at the premiere of Baby Mama, 2008
Birth name	Elizabeth Stamatina Fey
Born	May 18, 1970 (1970-05-18) (age 38) Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, USA
Years active	1994–present
Spouse	Jeff Richmond (2001–present)
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Writing - Variety Program 2002 Saturday Night Live Outstanding Comedy Series 2007 30 Rock 2008 30 Rock Outstanding Writing - Comedy Series 2008 30 Rock Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series 2008 30 Rock
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actress - Musical or Comedy Series 2008 30 Rock
Screen Actors Guild Awards
Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series 2008 30 Rock

Tina Fey (born Elizabeth Stamatina Fey; May 18, 1970) is an American writer, comedian, actress and producer. She has won five Emmys, a Golden Globe and a SAG Award. Fey is best known for her work on Mean Girls, Saturday Night Live (SNL), her impersonation of Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as well as her work on 30 Rock, a situation comedy loosely based on her experiences at Saturday Night Live.¹

Fey became a writer on SNL in 1997. She was promoted to the position of head writer in 1999. She was added to the cast of SNL in 2000.² After leaving SNL in 2006, Fey created her own television series called 30 Rock. In the series, she portrays Liz Lemon, the head writer of TGS with Tracy Jordan, a fictional sketch comedy series.² In early 2008, she starred in the movie Baby Mama, alongside Amy Poehler. During the final two months of the 2008 presidential election, Fey appeared on SNL portraying 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Personal life 2 Career 2.1 Saturday Night Live 2.1.1 SNL sketches 2.1.2 Weekend Update 2.1.3 Returning host 2.1.4 Sarah Palin 2.2 30 Rock 2.3 Feature films 2.4 Other work 3 Detailed works 3.1 As a writer 3.2 As an actor 4 Awards and nominations 5 References 6 External links

Biography

Fey was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, the daughter of Zenobia "Jeanne" (née Xenakes),³⁴ a brokerage employee, and Donald Fey, a university grant proposal-writer.⁵ Fey's father is of German and Scottish ancestry and her mother of Greek ancestry.⁶

Fey was exposed to comedy early. She recalls:

“

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: my dad hated it because it ripped off The Honeymooners.7 I actually have a very low level of Flintstones knowledge for someone my age.8

”

She also grew up watching SCTV and includes Catherine O'Hara among her role models.⁹

Fey attended Cardington Elementary School and Beverly Hills Middle School in Upper Darby.¹⁰ By middle school, she knew she was interested in comedy, even doing an independent-study project on the subject in eighth grade.⁷ She graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1988.¹⁰¹¹

Personal life

Fey is married to Jeff Richmond, a composer on SNL. They met at Chicago's Second City and dated for seven years before marrying in a Greek Orthodox ceremony on June 3, 2001.¹² They have a daughter, Alice Zenobia Richmond, who was born on September 10, 2005, in New York City,¹³¹⁴ where they reside.

Fey has a scar a few inches long on the left side of her chin and cheek. Responding to questions about its origin, Fey was quoted in the November 25, 2001, New York Times 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".¹⁵ But in an interview with Fey and Richmond in the January 2009 issue of Vanity Fair, Richmond revealed the scar resulted from a slashing incident, which happened when she was five. Richmond said: "It was in, like, the front yard of her house, and somebody just came up, and she just thought somebody marked her with a pen."¹⁶¹⁷

Career

After Fey graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in drama in 1992, she moved to Chicago, Illinois in order to take night classes at The Second City.¹⁸ Once her Second City training began, she immersed herself in the "cult of improvisation," becoming, as she described it a decade later, "one of those athletes trying to get into the Olympics. It was all about blind focus. I was so sure that I was doing exactly what I’d been put on this Earth to do, and I would have done anything to make it onto that stage. Not because of SNL, but because I wanted to devote my life to improv. I would have been perfectly happy to stay at Second City forever."¹⁸

By 1994, she was invited to join the cast of The Second City, where she performed in the Jeff Award-winning revue Paradigm Lost. Improvisation became an important influence on her initial understanding of what it means to be an actress, as she noted in an interview for The Believer in November 2003:¹⁸

“

When I started, improv had the biggest impact on my acting. I studied the usual acting methods at college—Stanislavsky and whatnot. But none of it really clicked for me. My problem with the traditional acting method was that I never understood what you were supposed to be thinking about when you’re onstage. But at Second City, I learned that your focus should be entirely on your partner. You take what they’re giving you and use it to build a scene. That opened it up for me. Suddenly it all made sense. It’s about your partner. Not what you’re going to say, not finding the perfect mannerisms or tics for your character, not what you’re going to eat later. Improv helped to distract me from my usual stage bullshit and put my focus somewhere else so that I could stop acting. I guess that’s what method acting is supposed to accomplish anyway. It distracts you so that your body and emotions can work freely. Improv is just a version of method acting that works for me.

”

While in Chicago, she also made what she later described as an "amateurish" attempt at stand-up comedy.⁷ Fey 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 very many head writers.¹⁹ 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 two episodes 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."²⁰

The season was her last, as she thereafter departed to develop 30 Rock.

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
• The Boston Teens, cowritten by Rachel 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.²¹

Returning host

On February 23, 2008, Fey hosted the first episode of SNL after the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, becoming the third female cast member to return and host.

Fey's celebrity impressions during the episode included Ellen Page (as Juno MacGuff) and Mary Jo Buttafuoco.

Sarah Palin

See also: Saturday Night Live parodies of Sarah Palin

Governor of Alaska and former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is considered to have a striking resemblance to Tina Fey,²² so much so that, in the immediate aftermath of John McCain's announcement of Palin as his running mate, speculation rose as to whether Fey might portray Palin in sketches on SNL.²³ On the 34th season premiere episode, aired September 13, 2008, Fey returned to SNL in the role of Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, alongside Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton. Their repartee included Clinton needling Palin about her "Tina Fey glasses." It quickly became NBC.com's most-watched viral video ever, with 5.7 million views by the following Wednesday.²⁴ In an interview, SNL creator Lorne Michaels said "The whole world cast her in that role." Michaels said that she was unlikely to remain in the role for long. ²⁵ Palin's campaign said that Palin was amused, particularly because she had once dressed up as Tina Fey for Halloween,²⁶ though Palin later said she had seen the sketch without hearing the audio. John McCain's top economic advisor Carly Fiorina called the sketch sexist.²⁷ During the 2008 Emmy Awards, Fey said of the vice-presidential candidate, "I want to be done playing this lady November 5. So if anyone could help me be done playing this lady November 5, that would be good for me." ²⁸ In an interview with TV Guide, Fey reiterated her desire that her role as Palin will be temporary. "If she wins, I'm done," said Fey. "I can't do that for four years. And by 'I'm done,' I mean I'm leaving Earth."²⁹

On September 27, she reprised her role as Palin, parodying the CBS News interview with Katie Couric, who was played by Poehler. Portions of the sketch were direct quotes and gestures from interviews with Couric on September 24. On October 4, she played the role of Palin at the 2008 vice-presidential debate, with Jason Sudeikis playing Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden and Queen Latifah as moderator Gwen Ifill. SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels, referring to the 50% audience increase in the 34th season, told the New York Times, “I think the gods smiled on us with the Palin thing.”³⁰ On October 18, 2008, Fey came face-to-face with Palin herself, when impersonating the vice presidential candidate in a fake news conference on SNL. Later on Late Night with Conan O'Brien she told of how Palin actually offerred the services of her daughter Bristol to babysit her daughter Alice if she could not find one.

New York Times television critic Alessandra Stanley wrote that the McCain campaign apparently believes that Fey's comedy sketches have "undermined Palin's plausibility" as a candidate qualified to be Vice President, and Stanley speculated that the candidate's appearance on SNL was calculated to "disarm" Fey.³¹

On the Thursday, October 23 episode of Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday, Fey as Palin appeared alongside John McCain (played by Darrell Hammond), as President George W. Bush (played by Will Ferrell) gave his endorsement to the pair.

On Saturday, November 1, Fey appeared with Senator McCain himself in a skit that mocked the McCain campaign's lack of funds. The skit featured McCain and Fey on the set of QVC, just a few days after Barack Obama bought time on the major television networks. Items advertised during the skit included an "Ayers Freshener," which Fey thought would remind people of Bill Ayers, a set of McCain-brand pork knives, a set of 10 white "Town Hall Debate plates," commemorating the 10 town hall meetings that never happened, McCain "Fine Gold Jewelry" (alluding to the McCain-Feingold Act on Campaign Reform) presented by Cindy McCain, as part of the Washington Outsider Jewelery Extravaganza, "Palin in 2012" t-shirts, and "limited-edition Joe Action Figures," including Joe the Plumber, Joe Six Pack, and a talking Joe Biden.^{citation needed}

On November 5, 2008, Fey told reporters she was retiring her impersonation of Sarah Palin, in order to focus on 30 Rock.³²

30 Rock

Fey developed a sitcom, 30 Rock, for NBC's fall 2006 schedule.³³ 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.³³ Fey also writes and stars in the sitcom, said to be based on her experiences at SNL.¹

The show made its debut with mostly positive reviews but weak ratings; ratings improved when NBC moved it to the Thursday night "Must See TV" comedy block. NBC renewed the series for a second season, which began in October 2007.³⁴

In July 2007, Fey was nominated for an Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series Emmy for her role as Liz Lemon. The show itself won the 2007 Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. In 2008, she won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical, and won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series on January 27.

Along with the rest of the show's writing staff, Fey participated in the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike, which began on November 5, 2007 and concluded on February 12, 2008. While picketing in Rockefeller Center on the first day of the strike, Fey was quoted as saying, "I'm a member of the Guild and I am here to support my fellow Guild members. This strike affects the show in which I work. We put our pens down yesterday, and we will not write until negotiations resume."³⁵ Fey, however, continued with her acting and producing duties on 30 Rock, as required by her contract.³⁶ Production on 30 Rock ended Friday, November 9, 2007³⁷ and resumed 95 days later, at the conclusion of the writers strike, on February 12, 2008.

The show's third season premiered on October 30, 2008.

Feature films

As a recurring guest on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, Fey had a running gag in which she would plug upcoming films that didn't really exist, substituting the promised clips with intentionally obviously unrelated footage. However, in 2004, she made her feature film debut as writer and co-star of Mean Girls. Characters and behaviors in the movie are based on Fey's high school life³⁸ at Upper Darby High School and on the non-fiction book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. The cast includes other present and past cast members of SNL including Tim Meadows, Ana Gasteyer, and Amy Poehler. She also made a voice cameo in the animated film Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters as the team's mother, a giant burrito.

Fey and former SNL castmate Amy Poehler starred in Baby Mama, released April 25, 2008 and written and directed by Michael McCullers. The plot concerns a business woman (Fey) who wants a child but discovers she has only a million-to-one chance of getting pregnant then decides to find a surrogate, "Angie" (Poehler), a white-trash schemer. The movie had mixed reviews, with a rating of 62% at Rottentomatoes.com, and has made over $60 million dollars to date.³⁹

In April 2006, Fey was working on a script for a Paramount Pictures film by the name of Curly Oxide and Vic Thrill that was based loosely on the true story of a Hasidic rock musician.⁴⁰ (2009) Fey will provide a voice for the upcoming film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, projected for an April 2009 release, although the specific role is as yet unknown.⁴¹

Other work

In 2000, Fey partnered with fellow SNL cast member Rachel Dratch in the critically acclaimed⁴² 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 that premiered at Austin's SXSW.

In 2007, Fey was chosen as one of the 100 People Who Shape Our World by Time magazine. She placed seventh on that year's Hot 100 List on AfterEllen.com, a website for lesbian women. She was ranked #80 on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2002¹⁸ and she was included in the People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People 2003. Fey guest-starred on the August 13, 2007 Sesame Street episode, "The Bookaneers."⁴³

Fey appeared as a guest judge on the November 25, 2007 episode of the Food Network program Iron Chef America. She has appeared in Disney's campaign "Year of a Million Dreams" as Tinker Bell, along with Mikhail Baryshnikov as Peter Pan and Gisele Bündchen as Wendy Darling ⁴⁴. She has also done commercials for American Express credit card ⁴⁵.

Detailed works

As a writer

Year/s	Title	Medium	Notes
1997–2006	Saturday Night Live	TV	Head writer 1999 onwards
2004	Mean Girls	Film	Screenplay adapted from Queen Bees and Wannabes
2006–present	30 Rock	TV	Episodes written: Pilot, The Aftermath, Tracy Does Conan, The Head and the Hair, Black Tie, Up All Night, The C Word, Hiatus, SeinfeldVision, Somebody to Love, MILF Island, Cooter, Do-Over

As an actor

Year/s	Title	Medium	Role/s	Notes
1998–2008	Saturday Night Live	TV	Multiple	Includes host of Weekend Update (2000–2006) and Sarah Palin
1999	Upright Citizens Brigade	TV
2002	Martin & Orloff	Film
2004	Mean Girls	Film	Ms. Norbury
2006	Artie Lange's Beer League	Film
2006–present	30 Rock	TV	Liz Lemon
2008	Baby Mama	Film	Kate Holbrook
2009	This Side of the Truth	Film

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Work	Result
2001	Emmy Award	Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program	Saturday Night Live	Nominated
	WGA Award	Comedy/Variety series	Saturday Night Live	Nominated
		Comedy/Variety special	Saturday Night Live: 25th Anniverssary Special	Won
2002	Emmy Award	Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program	Saturday Night Live	Won
	WGA Award	Comedy/Variety series		Nominated
2003	Emmy Award	Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program	Saturday Night Live	Nominated
	WGA Award	Comedy/Variety Series		Nominated
		Comedy/Variety Special	Saturday Night Live: NBC 75th Aniversary Special	Nominated
2004	Teen Choice Award	Choice TV Actress: Comedy		Nominated
2005	People's Choice Awards	Favorite Funny Female Star		Nominated
	Teen Choice Award	Choice Comedian		Nominated
	WGA Award	Best Adapted Screenplay	Mean Girls	Nominated
2007	Emmy Award	Comedy Series	30 Rock	Won
		Lead Actress in a Comedy Series		Nominated
		Writing for a Comedy Series	Tracy Does Conan for 30 Rock	Nominated
	WGA Award	Comedy Series	30 Rock	Nominated
		New Series		Nominated
		Comedy/Variety Special	Saturday Night Live	Won
2008	Emmy Award	Comedy Series	30 Rock	Won
		Lead Actress in a Comedy Series		Won
		Writing for a Comedy Series	Cooter for 30 Rock	Won
		Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program	Saturday Night Live	Nominated
	Golden Globe Award	Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy	30 Rock	Won
	Screen Actors Guild Awards	Female Actor in a Comedy Series		Won
		Ensemble in a Comedy Series		Nominated
	WGA Award	Comedy Series		Won

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tina Fey

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Tina Fey

• Tina Fey at the Internet Movie Database
• Tina Fey at TV.com
• Tina Fey on National Public Radio in 2008

Media offices
Preceded by Colin Quinn	Weekend Update 2000—2006 with Jimmy Fallon (2000—2004) Amy Poehler (2004—2006)	Succeeded by Seth Meyers
Awards and achievements
Primetime Emmy Awards
Preceded by Greg Daniels (with producers) for The Office	Outstanding Comedy Series (with producers) 2007, 2008 for 30 Rock	Succeeded by TBD
Preceded by America Ferrera for Ugly Betty	Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series for 30 Rock 2008	Succeeded by TBA
Preceded by Greg Daniels for The Office	Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series for Cooter on 30 Rock 2008	Succeeded by TBA
Golden Globe Award
Preceded by America Ferrera for Ugly Betty	Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy for 30 Rock 2008	Succeeded by TBA
Screen Actors Guild Award
Preceded by America Ferrera for Ugly Betty	Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series 2007 for 30 Rock	Succeeded by TBA

v • d • e Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Comedy Series Patricia Heaton (2000) · Patricia Heaton (2001) · Jennifer Aniston (2002) · Debra Messing (2003) · Sarah Jessica Parker (2004) · Felicity Huffman (2005) · Julia Louis-Dreyfus (2006) · America Ferrera (2007) · Tina Fey (2008) Complete list: (1950–1975) · (1976–2000) · (2001–present)

v • d • e 30 Rock Cast Tina Fey · Alec Baldwin · Tracy Morgan · Jane Krakowski · Jack McBrayer · Scott Adsit · Judah Friedlander Keith Powell · Katrina Bowden · Maulik Pancholy · Grizz Chapman · Kevin Brown · Minor cast Former Cast Lonny Ross Characters Liz Lemon · Tracy Jordan · Jack Donaghy · Jenna Maroney · Kenneth Parcell · Pete Hornberger · Frank Rossitano · James "Toofer" Spurlock · Cerie Xerox · Minor characters Former Characters Josh Girard Episodes List of 30 Rock episodes · Season One (2006–2007) · Season Two (2007–2008) · Season Three (2008–2009) Elements 30 Rockefeller Plaza · The GE Trivection Oven Related articles Awards and nominations · Saturday Night Live

Persondata
NAME	Fey, Tina
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Fey, Elizabeth Stamatina
SHORT DESCRIPTION	American comedy writer and actress
DATE OF BIRTH	May 18, 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH	Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, United States
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH