On November 5th, 2007, after negotiations failed again, the members of the Writers Guild of America walked out of their offices to strike. In Los Angeles, they formed packs outside studios, hoisting signs, and chanting slogans. In New York, they gathered in Rockefeller Center, marching on a strip of sidewalk. Every now and then, a celebrity joined the line, talking about how much they “support the writers.” But there was one famous face that became a mainstay—Tina Fey, bundled in a sweater, holding a hand-written sign over her head.
Because she is so familiar on-screen, it’s easy to forget that Tina Fey is first and foremost a writer. She was in Saturday Night Live’s writers room long before she became the anchor of Weekend Update. She didn’t just star in Mean Girls—she wrote the script. And while she was nominated for an Emmy for playing Liz Lemon on 30 Rock, she is also the show’s creator.
And that is why we love Tina Fey—she is beauty, brains and dead-pan humor all rolled into one. Men agree—she was #80 on Maxim’s list of the “Hot Women of 2002.” Even Time gave her props as one of this year’s “100 Most Influential People.” She is calm and collected, the celebrity you’d most want to be stuck in a burning building with, and one of the few you could trust to babysit your kids. It’s not just that we love Tina Fey—it’s that it’s kind of impossible not to.
What makes Tina so darn likeable is that her life is, well, normal. She grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia in a Greek family. (Her birth name is Elizabeth Stamatina.) Her mom stayed at home, while her dad rotated jobs—paramedic, grant writer, mystery novelist. By eighth grade, Tina knew she loved comedy. “I remember me and one other girl in my class got to do an independent study,” she told the Onion A.V. Club. “She chose to do hers on communism. I chose comedy. We kept bumping into each other at the card catalog.”
