Jan Hooks
Jan Hooks (born April 23, 1957 in Decatur, Georgia) is an American actress and comedian best known for her work on NBC's Saturday Night Live, on which she appeared from 1986 to 1991.
Hooks began her career as a member of the Los Angeles-based comedy troupe The Groundlings. She was first considered for SNL in 1985 but the show's producers chose Joan Cusack instead (mostly because, at age 28, Hooks was thought to be too old for the show). After the 1985 season proved to be a ratings disaster, she was offered a contract and helped to pull the show out of its slump along with Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, and others.
Her characters included one half of "The Sweeney Sisters" with Nora Dunn, as well as impressions of Nancy Reagan, Sinéad O'Connor, Elizabeth Dole, and Hillary Clinton. Her five-year stint on Saturday Night Live is all the more amazing because she has admitted to having extreme stage fright.
Hooks left SNL in 1991 to join the cast of the sitcom Designing Women, where she played the role of Carlene Dobber for two seasons. Since then, she has made appearances in several movies, done voice work on The Simpsons as Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon, and starred as Dixie Glick in the series Primetime Glick.
Hooks also had a recurring role as the trashy Vicki Dubcek on 3rd Rock from the Sun.
External links
- Jan Hooks at the Internet Movie Database
Categories
1957 births | Living people | American comedians | Film actors | Impressionist entertainers | People from Georgia (U.S. state) | Saturday Night Live cast members | The Simpsons cast members | Futurama actors | Television actors | Voice actors