Tina Fey


Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer. Known for her comedic roles in sketch comedy, television and film, Fey has received numerous accolades, including ten Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards as well as nominations for a Grammy Award and a Tony Award. She appeared on the Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world in both 2007 and 2009 and was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2010.
Fey broke into comedy as a featured player in the Chicago-based improvisational comedy group The Second City. She appeared on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1997 to 2006 for which she served as a head writer, a performer, and co-anchor of Weekend Update. She later returned to the show portraying a satirical version of 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin in subsequent guest appearances. She gained acclaim for creating and starring as Liz Lemon in the NBC sitcom 30 Rock which earned her several accolades including the Primetime Emmy Award, two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Actress in a Comedy Series.
She later created several shows including the Netflix sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the NBC sitcom Mr. Mayor, and the Netflix comedy-drama series The Four Seasons, and executive produced the Peacock series Girls5eva. Fey and Amy Poehler co-hosted the Golden Globe Awards four times in the years 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2021, as well as SNL in 2015, the latter of which earned them a Primetime Emmy Award. On film, Fey has acted in Mean Girls, Baby Mama, Date Night, Megamind, Admission, Muppets Most Wanted, Sisters, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Wine Country, and Soul.
Fey released her memoir, Bossypants, which topped The New York Times Best Seller list for five weeks and garnered her a Grammy Award nomination. Fey also created the musical adaptation Mean Girls, which premiered on Broadway in 2018, and earned her a Tony Award nomination. She later adapted the stage production into a 2024 musical film of the same name.

Early life and education

Elizabeth Stamatina Fey was born on May 18, 1970, in Upper Darby Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Her father, Donald Henry Fey, was a veteran of the Korean War, university administrator for the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jefferson University, and a grant proposal writer who raised $500 million for schools, hospitals, and public service agencies through proposals and direct mail appeals. Following her father's death, Fey established a scholarship fund in his name at his alma mater, Temple University, to support war veterans studying journalism. Her mother, Zenobia "Jeanne", was born in Piraeus, Greece. She worked professionally as a brokerage employee. Fey's maternal grandmother, Vasiliki Kourelakou, left the Greek village of Petrina, Laconia, on her own and arrived in the United States in February 1921. Fey's maternal grandfather, Constantine Xenakes, was from the village of Panagia on the Greek island of Ikaria. Fey's father had English, German and Scots-Irish ancestry; one of her paternal ancestors was John Hewson, an English textile manufacturer who emigrated to the United States with the support of Benjamin Franklin, enabling Hewson to open a quilting factory in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to a genealogical DNA test arranged by the television series Finding Your Roots, Fey's ancestry is 94% European, 3% Middle Eastern, and 3% from the Caucasus. She has a brother, Peter, who is eight years older.
Fey describes encountering comedy early:
At age 11, Fey read Joe Franklin's Seventy Years of Great Film Comedians for a school project about comedy. She grew up watching Second City Television and has cited Catherine O'Hara as a role model.
Fey went by the nickname "Tina" at an early age. She attended Cardington-Stonehurst Elementary School and Beverly Hills Middle School in Upper Darby. By middle school, she knew she was interested in comedy. Fey attended Upper Darby High School, where she was an honors student, a member of the choir, drama club, and tennis team, and co-editor of the school's newspaper, The Acorn. She anonymously wrote the newspaper's satirical column, The Colonel. Following her graduation in 1988, Fey enrolled at the University of Virginia, where she studied playwriting and acting and was awarded the Pettway Prize. During her time at UVA, she was a member of Delta Zeta sorority and the student-led theater organization, First Year Players. She graduated in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and a major in drama.

Career

Career beginnings (1993–1997)

After college, Fey moved to Chicago. She worked as a receptionist during the day at the YMCA in Evanston, Illinois, and took performance classes at the improvisational comedy troupe The Second City at night. Fey started doing gigs at Improv Olympic in 1993 where she first worked with pianist Jeff Richmond, her future husband and collaborator and frequent collaborator Amy Poehler. Both Fey and Richmond got jobs at Second City. Fey appeared in "the legendary revue 'Paradigm Lost', alongside the likes of Rachel Dratch, Kevin Dorff, Scott Adsit, Jenna Jolovitz and Jim Zulevic."

''Saturday Night Live'' (1997–2006)

While performing shows with The Second City in 1997, Fey submitted several scripts to NBC's variety show Saturday Night Live, at the request of its head writer Adam McKay, a former performer at Second City. She was hired as a writer following a meeting with SNL creator Lorne Michaels, and moved from Chicago to New York. Fey told The New Yorker, "I'd had my eye on the show forever, the way other kids have their eye on Derek Jeter." Originally, Fey "struggled" at SNL. Her first sketch to air starred Chris Farley in a Sally Jessy Raphael satire. Fey went on to write a series of parodies, including one of ABC's morning talk show The View. She co-wrote the "Sully and Denise" sketches with Rachel Dratch, who plays one of the teens.
Fey was an extra in a 1998 episode, and after watching herself, decided to diet and lost 30 pounds. She told The New York Times, "I was a completely normal weight, but I was here in New York City, I had money and I couldn't buy any clothes. After I lost weight, there was interest in putting me on camera." In 1999, McKay stepped down as head writer, which led Michaels to approach Fey for the position. She became SNLs first female head writer. In January 2001, she appeared on an episode of Real World/Road Rules Extreme Challenge as a judge of a comedy-based mission.
In 2000, Fey began performing in sketches, and she and Jimmy Fallon became co-anchors of SNLs Weekend Update segment. Fey said she did not ask to audition, but that Michaels approached her. Michaels explained that there was chemistry between Fey and Fallon, though he felt the decision was "kind of risky" at the time. Her role in Weekend Update was well received by critics. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "Fey delivers such blow darts – poison filled jokes written in long, precisely parsed sentences unprecedented in history – with such a bright, sunny countenance makes her all the more devilishly delightful." Dennis Miller, a former cast member of SNL and anchor of Weekend Update, was pleased with Fey as one of the anchors: "Fey might be the best Weekend Update anchor who ever did it. She writes the funniest jokes." Robert Bianco of USA Today, however, commented that he was "not enamored" of the pairing.
In 2001, Fey and the rest of the writing staff won a Writers Guild of America Award for SNLs 25th anniversary special. The following year at the 2002 Emmy Awards ceremony, they won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program.
When Fallon left the show in May 2004, he was replaced on Weekend Update by Amy Poehler. It was the first time that two women had co-anchored Weekend Update. Fey revealed that she "hired" Poehler as her co-host for the segment. The reception was positive, with Rachel Sklar of the Chicago Tribune noting that the pairing "has been a hilarious, pitch-perfect success as they play off each other with quick one-liners and deadpan delivery".
The 2005–2006 season was Fey's last; she departed SNL to develop 30 Rock for Broadway Video. At the time she left, the 117 episodes she co-hosted made her SNLs longest-serving Weekend Update anchor, a mark that would later be passed by her replacement, Seth Meyers. In Rolling Stones February 2015 appraisal of all 141 SNL cast members to date, Fey was ranked third in importance. They credited her with "salvaging from a decade-long losing streak", and "slapping SNL out of its late-nineties coma."

''30 Rock'' (2006–2013, 2020)

In 2002, Fey suggested a pilot episode for a situation comedy about a cable news network to NBC, which rejected it. The pilot was reworked to revolve around an SNL style series, and was accepted by NBC. She signed a contract with NBC in May 2003, which allowed her to continue in her position within SNL as head writer at least through the 2004–2005 television season. As part of the contract, Fey was to develop a prime-time project to be produced by Broadway Video and NBC Universal. The pilot, directed by Adam Bernstein, centered on Liz Lemon, the head writer of a variety show on NBC, and how she managed her relationships with the show's volatile stars and the new head of the network. In October 2006, the pilot aired on NBC as 30 Rock. Although the episode received generally favorable reviews, it finished third in its time slot.
In 2007, Fey received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series. The show itself won the 2007 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. In 2008, she won the Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and Emmy awards all in the category for Best Actress in a Comedy Series. The following year, Fey again won the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award in the same categories, and was nominated for an Emmy Award. In early 2010, Fey received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Lead Actress. 30 Rock returned for the 2011–2012 season, though due to Fey's pregnancy with her second child, the season premiere was delayed until midseason.
Fey's performance on the show was inspired by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and later used Louis-Dreyfus to play the stand-in for the character of Liz Lemon in flashback scenes during the live episode "Live Show" of the fifth season. After receiving 13 Emmy Award nominations and two wins for the final season, 30 Rock ended its run with 112 Emmy Award nominations. It has been cited as one of the greatest TV series of all time and it is considered to have one of the greatest finales in television history.
The show returned for a remotely produced hourlong special which aired on July 16, 2020.
On June 23, 2020, Fey apologized for episodes of 30 Rock where characters appeared in blackface. The episodes, which originally aired in seasons three, five, and six, were removed from streaming services and are no longer shown in re-runs. In her apology, Fey wrote: