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Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey (; born May 18, 1970) is an American comedian, actress, writer, and producer. Fey was a cast member and head writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1997 to 2006. After her departure from SNL, she created the NBC sitcom 30 Rock (2006–2013, 2020) and the Netflix sitcom Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015–2020), the former of which she also starred in. Fey is also known for her work in film, including Mean Girls (2004), Baby Mama (2008), Date Night (2010), Megamind (2010), Muppets Most Wanted (2014), Sisters (2015), Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (2016), Wine Country (2019), Soul (2020), A Haunting in Venice (2023), and Mean Girls (2024). Fey broke into comedy as a featured player in the Chicago-based improvisational comedy group The Second City. She joined Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a writer, later becoming head writer and a performer, appearing as co-anchor in the Weekend Update segment and, later, developing a satirical portrayal of 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in subsequent guest appearances. In 2004, she co-starred in and wrote the screenplay for Mean Girls, which was adapted from the 2002 self-help book Queen Bees and Wannabes. After leaving SNL in 2006, Fey created the television series 30 Rock for Broadway Video, a sitcom loosely based on her experiences at SNL. In the series, Fey starred as Liz Lemon, the head writer of a fictional sketch comedy series. In 2011, she released her memoir, Bossypants, which topped The New York Times Best Seller list for five weeks and garnered her a Grammy Award nomination. In 2015, she co-created the comedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. 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. Fey has received numerous accolades, including nine Primetime Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, and seven Writers Guild of America Awards. She appeared on the Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world in both 2007 and 2009. In 2008, the Associated Press gave Fey the AP Entertainer of the Year Award for her Sarah Palin impression on SNL. In 2010, Fey was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, becoming the youngest recipient of the award. Early life Elizabeth Stamatina Fey was born on May 18, 1970, in Upper Darby Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Her father, Donald Henry Fey, was a Korean War veteran, 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" (née Xenakes), is a retired brokerage employee born in Piraeus, Greece. Fey's maternal grandmother, Vasiliki Kourelakou, left the Greek village of Petrina on her own and arrived in the United States in February 1921. Fey's father had English, German and Scottish-Irish ancestry; one of her paternal ancestors was John Hewson, an English textile manufacturer who immigrated 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: 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. 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. She graduated in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts, with a major in drama. Career Career beginnings 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 where she first worked with pianist Jeff Richmond, her future husband and collaborator. 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 SNL's 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 beg.... Discover the Lorena Angell popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Lorena Angell books.