Biography
This page uses content from the Jane Curtin biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
Jane Therese Curtin (born September 6, 1947) is an American actor and comedian, from Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds an associate degree from Elizabeth Seton Junior College in New York City. Curtin lives in Connecticut with her husband, Patrick Lynch. The couple have 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. A practicing Catholic, she did not participate in SNL's notorious backstage party scene.
Saturday Night Live
Jane Curtin is famous as one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live (SNL). On this show, she often played straight-woman characters seemingly driven to frustration by the antics of her wackier castmates including John Belushi and Gilda Radner.
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, Jane lost control (presumably playing this loss of control, not literally) and exposed her bra to Roseanne, saying "check for yourself, Roseanne"!
These sketches may have represented an American anxiety about the FCC's "fairness doctrine" which in the early 1970s required television networks to allow on-air responses to station viewpoints by a variety of minority political views, and Belushi and Radner appear to get their cue from the outlier individuals who sometimes appeared on-air under the fairness doctrine. Despite Saturday Night Live's reputation as a "liberal", indeed envelope-pushing show, Belushi and Radner make the comedic point that minorities (Belushi's East European, Radner's Jew) aren't ready for prime time while Anglo-Saxon hipsters are, for the former can control themselves. In fact, American television networks were able to get the fairness doctrine revoked.
For this reason, Jane had many admirers in SNL's audience because in the middle of what Tom Wolfe called "the Purple decades", Curtin gave TwentySomething women permission to abandon the faux-ethnic look (wild hair, Asian long skirts, platform shoes and clunky jewelry) and take on the "TV anchorwoman" look (coiffed hair, tailored suits, pumps and no jewelry) which ten years later became a widespread Yuppie fashion statement of recommittment to "prime time" values.
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). 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. In a parody of the "Point-Counterpoint" segment of the news program 60 Minutes, Curtin portrayed a controlled "liberal", Politically Correct viewpoint vs. Dan Aykroyd, who prototyped today's right-wing media "attack" journalist. (Curtin would always present the liberal "Point" portion first, then Aykroyd would present the "Counterpoint" portion, beginning with the statement, "Jane, you ignorant slut!")
Later television career
Unlike many of her SNL cast members who ventured often successfully into film, Curtin chose to stay in television and has been remarkably successful there. Her film appearances have been sporadic. To date, she has starred in two long-running television sitcoms. First, in Kate & Allie, with Susan Saint James (1984-89), she played a single mother named "Allie Lowell." She received two Emmys for her performance. 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.
Curtin starred with Fred Savage in the ABC sitcom Crumbs, which debuted in January 2006 and was canceled in May of that year.
In 1993, Jane 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 in the film Antz.
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.
Curtin has a cousin in the industry, actress and writer Valerie Curtin.
Filmography
- Mr. Mike's Mondo Video (1979)
- How to Beat the High Co$t of Living (1980)
- O.C. and Stiggs (1987)
- Coneheads (1993)
- Antz (1998) (voice)
- Geraldine's Fortune (2004)
- Brooklyn Lobster (2005)
- The Shaggy Dog (2006)
External links
- InnerVIEWS with Ernie Manouse: Jane Curtin (TV Interview)
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