You can read them in the list below!
1. Tina Fey was born Elizabeth Stamatina Fey on May 18, 1970, in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, to parents Donald and Jeannec Fay.
2. She is half German (her dad’s side) and half Greek (her mom’s side).
3. She went on to study drama at the University of Virginia.
4. Tina attended Beverly Hills Middle School, which is in Upper Darby, a township outside of Philadelphia. There, she did an independent-study project on comedy in the 8th grade where she read up on guys like Joe E. Brown.
5. Tina has said that she “remained a virgin well into my 20s”.
6. Fey played Frenchie in the Upper Darby High School production of Grease.
7. She had a tragic encounter at the age of five. Fey was in her front yard when a stranger approached her and slashed her face with a knife, leaving her with the signature scar she still carries today.
8. Her first writing gig was an anonymous column for her high school newspaper, The Acorn, under the alias “The Colonel”.
9. As a kid, Fey was not allowed to watch The Flinstones because her dad said it was a rip off of The Honeymooners.
10. Tina paid for her classes at Second City by working at the Evanston YMCA, working at the front desk. “I was always fascinated by the guys who lived there. They were these discarded men; some had been kicked out of the house by their wives, some were old men who didn’t have a family to stay with anymore. A few of them were obviously mentally disturbed,” she has said.
11. She went on to study drama at the University of Virginia.
12. Jeannec Fey worked in a brokerage firm and Donald Fey wrote grants for the University of Pennsylvania.
13. Adam McKay, who directed Anchorman, taught Fey’s first improv class at Second City in Chicago.
14. She is Saturday Night Live’s first-ever female head writer.
15. She was funny from a young age. “I knew I wanted to be funny around seventh or eighth grade,” says Fey. “Mostly I wanted attention, and being funny was the most possible way for me to get it.”
16. Tina didn’t really date in high school. “I really didn’t have very many dates at all. And that’s not an exaggeration. But also, I don’t think we should discount the fact that unplucked eyebrows and short hair with a perm may not have been the best offering, either,” she has said.
17. She enrolled in the comedy training ground Second City, a renowned program where many Saturday Night Live (SNL) comedians got their start.
18. It was Tina Fey’s 8th grade teacher who first told her she should be a writer. “I thought, I don’t want to be a writer, ’cause then you’re just by yourself in a room all the time,” she told PEOPLE. “I want to be a star!”
19. She enrolled in the comedy training ground Second City, a renowned program where many Saturday Night Live (SNL) comedians got their start.
20. After graduating from college in 1992, Tina Fey moved to Chicago to pursue a career in comedy.
21. Fey is a big “Star Wars” fan and often references the sci-fi saga in her work.
22. Before Fey became a featured player, the writer would appear as an extra, often as an audience member.
23. After three years behind the camera for SNL, Tina Fey lost 30 pounds on Weight Watchers and started appearing on the show. “I was a size 12 when I came to the show, and then I was really dealing with my stress with Krispy Kremes,” she told PEOPLE.
24. She filmed a commercial for Mutual Savings Bank.
25. Tina’s first sketch to air starred Chris Farley in a Sally Jessy Raphael satire where he played a giant baby.
26. She made her big-screen debut in 2004’s “Mean Girls,” which she also wrote.
27. As a teenager, she knew she was interested in comedy and, by high school, she was taking drama classes and writing consistently.
28. Her humor and confidence as a child likely helped her overcome a tragic experience as a child. When she was 5 years old and playing in her front yard, a stranger approached her and cut her cheek with a knife.
29. Fey’s husband Jeff Richmond composed the 30 Rock theme music.
30. Her mother works at a brokerage firm, while her dad wrote grants for universities.
31. After graduating, she moved to Chicago to pursue her comedy career and eventually spent several years at Second City, a now famed comedy troupe where many “Saturday Night Live” cast members started out.
32. Her first sketch on the show was a Sally Jessy Raphael satire, and starred Chris Farley as a giant baby.
33. After seven years of dating, Fey and Jeff Richmond marry in a Greek Orthodox ceremony in 2001. “I fell in love with her very quickly,” Richmond, who is 10 years Fey’s senior said in an interview. “She has this caustic, biting wit that pops out occasionally, but she really does have a little-girl-from-the-suburbs kind of ambience.”
34. Though her black-rimmed glasses are her trademark look, Tina Fey only needed them to read cue cards and rarely wore them away from the SNL set.
35. Fey was cast as a news reporter on the regular “Weekend Update” sketch with Jimmy Fallon, where she wrote many of the segments’ most popular biting jokes.
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