Tina Fey American writer

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.

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. 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. 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.

Biography

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

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.

I actually have a very low level of Flintstones knowledge for someone my age.

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

Fey attended Cardington Elementary School and Beverly Hills Middle School in Upper Darby. By middle school, she knew she was interested in comedy, even doing an independent-study project on the subject in eighth grade. She graduated from Upper Darby High School in 1988.

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. They have a daughter, Alice Zenobia Richmond, who was born on September 10, 2005, in New York City, 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”.

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. 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.”