Jane Curtin

Jane Therese Curtin was born on September 6, 1947, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and raised in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Both her maternal and paternal ancestry are Irish, with her father's Curtin family tracing its roots to Newmarket-on-Fergus, County Clare. She was raised Roman Catholic and 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 in 1967, then attended Northeastern University from 1967 to 1968 before leaving to pursue a career in comedy. She has one younger brother, Larry Curtin, and an older brother, John J. "Jack" Curtin, who died on September 20, 2008.

After dropping out of Northeastern, Curtin joined a comedy group called The Proposition and performed with them until 1972. In 1974, she appeared in Pretzels, an off-Broadway play she co-wrote with John Forster, Judith Kahan, and Fred Grandy. Her national profile rose significantly in 1975 when she became one of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players on NBC's Saturday Night Live, remaining with the show through the 1979–1980 season. On the program, she frequently played straight-woman characters, often serving as a foil to John Belushi and Gilda Radner. She anchored the "Weekend Update" segment beginning in 1976, first paired with Dan Aykroyd from 1977 to 1978 and then with Bill Murray from 1978 to 1980. Among her recurring characters were Prymaat, the wife and mother of the Conehead family, and Enid Loopner. In a recurring parody of the "Point-Counterpoint" segment from 60 Minutes, Curtin delivered the liberal viewpoint opposite Aykroyd's right-wing counterpoint, a segment that has since been referenced in The Chronicle of Higher Education. She appears in the retrospective compilation DVD The Women of SNL, released in 2010.

Curtin's television work after Saturday Night Live centered primarily on two long-running sitcoms. From 1984 to 1989, she starred in Kate & Allie alongside Susan Saint James, playing single mother Allison "Allie" Lowell. The role earned her back-to-back Emmy Awards for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. She subsequently co-starred in the 1990 sitcom Working It Out with Stephen Collins, created by Kate & Allie writer, director, and producer Bill Persky, though the series was cancelled after 13 episodes. From 1996 to 2001, she played Dr. Mary Albright on 3rd Rock from the Sun, opposite John Lithgow, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Additional television credits include a guest appearance on Sesame Street in 1985, narrating two episodes of the documentary series Understanding in 1997, voice work on Recess and Cyberchase, a co-starring role on the ABC sitcom Crumbs with Fred Savage in 2006, a recurring role as Dr. Joanne Webster on Unforgettable beginning in 2012, and a co-starring role on the ABC sitcom United We Fall in 2020.

Her film work includes the 1993 feature Coneheads, in which she reprised her SNL character Prymaat alongside Dan Aykroyd. Curtin and Aykroyd also provided voices together in the animated film Antz. She appeared in The Librarian series of films between 2004 and 2008, playing the character Charlene. Additional film roles include How to Beat the High Cost of Living in 1980, I Love You, Man in 2009, The Heat in 2013, and Disney's Godmothered, in which she played Moira, the Headmistress of the Motherland.

Curtin's Broadway career spans from 1981 to 2002. She made her Broadway debut as Miss Proserpine Garnett in the play Candida in 1981. She subsequently joined the casts of Love Letters and Noises Off as a replacement actress. In 2002, she appeared in a revival of Our Town, a production that drew considerable press attention when Paul Newman returned to the Broadway stage after an absence of several decades.

Among her other activities, Curtin has served as a U.S. Committee National Ambassador for UNICEF. On May 7, 2010, she competed in the Jeopardy! Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational, finishing second and winning $250,000 for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, with Michael McKean winning the tournament and Cheech Marin placing third. She presented Emmy Awards in 1984, 1987, and 1998, presented at the 11th Annual American Comedy Awards in 1997, and presented at the 54th Annual Golden Globe Awards in 1997. She was included on a 1986 list of the Top Prime Time Actors and Actresses of All Time and has narrated audio books including Carl Hiaasen's novel Nature Girl.