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Tina Fey

Tina Fey making the 30 Rock episode Ludachristmas.

Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey (born May 18, 1970) is the creator and a writer, star, and executive producer of the television program 30 Rock, for which she won an Emmy and two Golden Globes for playing Liz Lemon. The show is a situation comedy loosely based on her experiences at Saturday Night Live.[1][2]

Early life[]

Fey was born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, the daughter of Zenobia "Jeanne" (née Xenakes).[3]

Career[]

After Fey graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Drama in 1992, she moved to Chicago in order to take night classes at The Second City.[4] 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."[4]

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

While in Chicago she also made what she later described as an "amateurish" attempt at stand-up comedy.[5]

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.[6] 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 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.[7]

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.

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. Later in 2008, Fey won Emmys for acting in 30 Rock, for writing the episode "Cooter," and for Outstanding Comedy Series once again.

Episodes written for 30 Rock[]

So far, Fey has independently written nine episodes of 30 Rock and co-written five episodes. They are:

Feature films[]

Fey wrote the script for and co-starred in the 2004 movie Mean Girls. On April 25, 2008, Baby Mama, Fey's collaboration with former Saturday Night Live castmate Amy Poehler, was released.

Personal life[]

Fey is married to Jeff Richmond, a composer on SNL and 30 Rock. They met at Chicago's Second City and dated for seven years before marrying in a Greek Orthodox[8] ceremony on June 3, 2001. The couple has two daughters: Alice Zenobia Richmond (born September 10, 2005)[9] and Penelope Athena Richmond (born August 10, 2011).[10][11] In April 2009, Fey and Richmond purchased a US$3.4 million apartment on the Upper West Side in New York City.[12]

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."[13]

References[]

  1. [1]
  2. 2.0 2.1 [2]
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  4. 4.0 4.1 [4]
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  8. [8]
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  13. [9]
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