Jane Therese Curtin (born September 6, 1947) is an American actress and comedian. First coming to prominence as an original cast member on the hit TV comedy series Saturday Night Live in 1975, she went on to win back-to-back Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series on the 1980s sitcom Kate & Allie portraying the role of Allison "Allie" Lowell. Curtin later starred in the hit series 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001), playing the role of Dr. Mary Albright.
Curtin has also appeared in many movie roles, including Charlene in The Librarian series of movies (2004–2008). She reprised one of her Saturday Night Live characters, Prymaat (Clorhone) Conehead, in the 1993 film Coneheads. She is sometimes referred to as the "Queen of Deadpan". The Philadelphia Inquirer once called her a "refreshing drop of acid". She was included on a 1986 list of the "Top Prime Time Actors and Actresses of All Time".
Early life
Jane Therese Curtin was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the second of three children born to Mary Constance (née Farrell) and John Joseph Curtin, who owned an insurance agency. Her maternal ancestry is Irish, while the paternal, Curtin, ancestry is Irish, originally from Newmarket-on-Fergus, County Clare. Curtin has one younger brother, Larry Curtin, who lives in South Florida; and an older brother, John J. "Jack" Curtin ( 2008). Curtin is a cousin of actress and writer Valerie Curtin. Her uncle was the radio personality Joseph Curtin.
She was raised Roman Catholic, and grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She graduated from Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Newton in 1965. Curtin earned an associate degree from Elizabeth Seton Junior College in New York City, class of 1967. She then attended Northeastern University from 1967 to 1968 before dropping out of college to pursue a career in comedy.
Career
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, John Forster, Judith Kahan, and Fred Grandy, in 1974.
Saturday Night Live
One of the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players of NBC's Saturday Night Live (1975), Curtin remained on the show through the 1979–1980 season. Guest host Eric Idle said that Curtin was "very much a 'Let's come in, let's know our lines, let's do it properly, and go' ... She was very sensible, very focused", and disliked the drug culture in which many of the cast participated. Show writer Al Franken stated that she "was so steady. Had a really strong moral center, and as such was disgusted by much of the show and the people around it".
On the show, and mirroring her own low-key real life, she frequently played straight-woman characters, often as a foil to John Belushi and Gilda Radner. Curtin anchored SNL'''s "Weekend Update" segment from 1976 to 1977, paired with Dan Aykroyd from 1977 to 1978 and Bill Murray from 1978 to 1980. On occasional "Weekend Update" segments, her newscaster character served as a foil to John Belushi, who often gave a rambling and out-of-control "commentary" on events of the day. During these sketches, she timidly tried to get Belushi to come to the point, which would only make him angrier. Curtin's newscaster also introduced baseball expert Chico Escuela (Garrett Morris), a heavily accented Dominican, who started his sketches by saying, "Thank you, Hane", before repeating his famous catchphrase, "Baseball been bery, bery good to me!" She also introduced Roseanne Roseannadanna (Gilda Radner) and would listen in exasperated silence at Roseannadanna's disjointed commentary before ultimately cutting her off. In addition, she sang in the "Chevy's Girls" sketch in season two, episode two, alongside Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner.
In a parody of the "Point-Counterpoint" segment of the news program 60 Minutes, Curtin delivered a controlled liberal viewpoint (à la Shana Alexander) vs. Dan Aykroyd, who (in the manner of James J. Kilpatrick) epitomized the right-wing view, albeit with an over-the-top "attack" journalist slant. Curtin presented the liberal "Point" portion first. Then Aykroyd presented the "Counterpoint" portion, sometimes beginning with the statement, "Jane, you ignorant slut," to which she replied, "Dan, you pompous ass." The recurring segment has been discussed in an article on "How to Respectfully Disagree" in The Chronicle of Higher Education.