| Jane Curtin |
at the 41st Emmy Awards, September 1989 |
| Born |
Jane Therese Curtin
September 6, 1947 (1947-09-06) (age 61)
Wellesley, Massachusetts
United States |
| Occupation |
actress, comedienne |
| Years active |
1968–present |
| Spouse(s) |
Patrick Lynch |
Jane Therese Curtin (born September 6, 1947) is an American actress and comedienne. First coming to prominence as an original cast member on Saturday Night Live in 1975, she would go on to win back-to-back Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series on the 1980s sitcom Kate & Allie. Curtin later starred in the hit series 3rd Rock from the Sun. She recreated her SNL character for the film The Coneheads and has more recently appeared in The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines.
Biography
Curtin was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the daughter of Mary Constance (née Farrell) and John Joseph Curtin, who owned an insurance agency.[1] She is a cousin of actress and writer Valerie Curtin.
Career
Curtin holds an associate degree from Elizabeth Seton Junior College in New York City. Curtin lives in Connecticut with her husband, Patrick Lynch. The couple has one daughter, Tess Lynch. She has served as a U.S. Committee National Ambassador for UNICEF. In 1968, Curtin decided to pursue comedy as a career and dropped out of college. She joined a comedy group, "The Proposition", and performed with them until 1972. She starred in Pretzels, an off-Broadway play written by Curtin and Fred Grandy, in 1974.
One of the original "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" for NBC's Saturday Night Live (1975), Curtin remained on the show through the 1979–1980 season. As she was a practicing Catholic at the time and married, she rarely participated in SNL's notorious backstage party scene.
Saturday Night Live
Curtin is famous as one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live (SNL). On this show, and mirroring her own low-key real life, she often played straight-woman characters, seemingly driven to frustration by the antics of her wackier castmates including John Belushi and Gilda Radner.
Curtin anchored SNL's "Weekend Update" segment in 1976–77, and was paired with Dan Aykroyd in 1977–78 and Bill Murray in 1978-80.
As a TV anchorwoman, Jane played as a foil to John Belushi, who would often give a rambling and out of control "commentary" on events of the day. During these sketches, Jane would timidly try to get Belushi to come to the point which would only make him angrier. In the most noted sketch, Belushi gave a rambling account of his Irish friend's troubles to demonstrate that there was no such thing as "the luck of the Irish".
Gilda Radner, in her persona of Roseanne Roseannadanna, would present an ethnic face to Jane's Anglo-Saxon self-control and as such annoy Jane with personal remarks. In one famous sketch, the ever-earthy Roseanne asked Jane (in her newscaster role) whether her breasts were of identical size. Jane's newscaster character lost control and exposed her bra to Roseanne, spouting "Check for yourself, Roseanne!"
Another Radner character, Emily Litella would also annoy Jane to distraction by her angry rants about topics she misunderstands, such as the "deaf penalty" and "violins on television." After being corrected, she would say "nevermind," with an additional addendum for Jane: "bitch."
Jane's newscaster would also introduce baseball expert Chico Escuela (Garrett Morris), a heavily-accented Dominican, who would start his sketches by saying, "Thank you, Hane", before repeating his famous catchphrase, "Baseball been bery, bery good to me!"
In a parody of the "Point-Counterpoint" segment of the news program 60 Minutes, Curtin portrayed a controlled "liberal", Politically Correct viewpoint (referencing Shana Alexander) vs. Dan Aykroyd, who (referencing James J. Kilpatrick) prototyped the right-wing view, albeit with an over the top "attack" journalist slant. Curtin would present the liberal "Point" portion first, then Aykroyd would present the "Counterpoint" portion, sometimes beginning with the statement, "Jane, you ignorant slut."
Curtin is also well known for her role in the Conehead sketches as "Prymaat Conehead" (mother of the Conehead family), and as "Enid Loopner" (in sketches with Gilda Radner and Bill Murray).
Later television career
Unlike many of her SNL cast members who ventured often successfully into film, Curtin chose to stay in television. Her film appearances have been sporadic. To date, she has starred in two long-running television sitcoms. First, in Kate & Allie (1984–89), with Susan Saint James, she played a single mother named "Allie Lowell" and twice won the Emmy Award for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
In 1993, Curtin and Dan Aykroyd were reunited in Coneheads, a full-length motion picture based on their popular SNL characters. They also appeared together as the voices of a pair of wasps (a reference to W.A.S.P.s, hence the choice of actors)[citation needed] in the film Antz.
In 1994, Curtin narrated the documentary television series Understanding.
She later joined the cast of 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996-2001) playing a human, Dr. Mary Albright, opposite the alien family, composed of John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. As with SNL, her mostly–strait-laced character was often confounded by the zany and whimsical antics of the Solomon family.
Curtin starred with Fred Savage in the ABC sitcom Crumbs, which debuted in January 2006 and was canceled in May of that year. She's also guest starred on Gary Unmarried as Connie, Allison's mother.[2]
She also has narrated several audio books, including Carl Hiaasen's novel Nature Girl.
Broadway
Curtin has also performed on Broadway on occasion. She first appeared on the Great White Way as Miss Prosperine Garrett in the play "Candida" in 1981. She later went on to be a replacement actress in two other plays: "Love Letters" and "Noises Off", and was in the 2002 revival of "Our Town," which received huge press attention as Paul Newman returned to the Broadway stage after several decades away.
Filmography
References
External links
