On CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage Monday night, when former “Saturday Night Live” star Jane Curtin, 71, was asked what her New Year’s resolution was, she had a succinct and brutal response: “My New Year’s resolution is to make sure that the Republican Party dies.”
It’s unclear exactly how the former star will accomplish her goal; she didn’t elaborate on the power she wields in order to guarantee that the GOP vanishes.
Curtin came to fame on “Saturday Night Live” in 1975, segueing to a role on the show “Kate and Allie,” for which she won back-to-back Emmy Awards in the 1980’s. She later starred in “3rd Rock from the Sun” between 1996–2001.
In November 2017, Curtin joined 35 other women affiliated with “Saturday Night Live” to sign a letter countering sexual harassment allegations against former senator Al Franken (D-MN), who had performed on SNL. The letter stated:
We feel compelled to stand up for Al Franken, whom we have all had the pleasure of working with over the years on Saturday Night Live (SNL). What Al did was stupid and foolish, and we think it was appropriate for him to apologize to Ms Tweeden, and to the public. In our experience, we know Al as a devoted and dedicated family man, a wonderful comedic performer, and an honorable public servant. That is why we are moved to quickly and directly affirm that after years of working with him, we would like to acknowledge that not one of us ever experienced any inappropriate behavior; and mention our sincere appreciation that he treated each of us with the utmost respect and regard.
In 2011, appearing on “Oprah,” Curtin spoke of the “misogynistic” atmosphere on the “Saturday Night Live” set. She stated:
It was primarily a misogynistic environment and in 1975, it was again, a very different time, and women’s liberation happened in the ‘60s and so women were going out in the workforce and challenging them, saying, “I can do this job too.” Well, it was not necessarily embraced by the male population, understandably so, they were threatened by the fact that there were all these women that were going out into the workplace and they were going to have to compete with them as well as the other men.
She claimed, “I couldn’t get a credit card in 1975 because I was a self-employed female. Things were very different. Women were not treated equally.”
Oprah asked, “So did you consider yourself and Gilda as groundbreakers, pioneers?”
Curtin answered, relating the attitude of former star John Belushi: “No, because we were working too hard to get on the air. So, I mean, we never thought it in a philosophical sense. I think the women writers did, because their battle was constant and they were working against John, who said women are just fundamentally not funny. And so you’d go to a table read and if a woman writer had written the piece for John, he would not read it in his full voice. He would whisper it. He felt as though it was his duty to sabotage pieces that were written by women. “
