Jan Hooks

Hooks was born and raised in Decatur, Georgia, where she attended Canby Lane Elementary School and Towers High School. In 1974, she moved to Fort Myers, Florida, her junior year when her father, a Sears employee, was transferred. At this point, Hooks attended Cypress Lake High School and made her stage debut in a high school play and graduated in 1975. She attended Edison State College where she majored in Theatre, but opted to leave before completion, to pursue acting full time.[3]

She began her career as a member of the Los Angeles-based comedy troupe The Groundlings and in an Atlanta nightclub act called The Wits End Players.[4]

From 1980 to 1981, she appeared in Tush on Ted Turner's television station WTBS, which eventually became TBS.[5] She gained attention in the early 1980s on the HBO comedy series Not Necessarily the News[6] and made guest appearances on Comedy Break with Mack and Jamie in the mid-1980s.[7]

Hooks was considered for SNL in 1985, but was passed over by the show's producers in favor of Joan Cusack. After the show's 1985–1986 season was deemed a ratings disaster and put on the chopping block for cancellation, returning producer Lorne Michaels offered Hooks a contract in 1986, along with new recruits Dana Carvey and Phil Hartman, among others. They helped put the show back in the national spotlight. Her characters included Candy Sweeney of "The Sweeney Sisters". She performed notable impressions of Bette Davis, Ann-Margret, Betty Ford, Nancy Reagan, Sinéad O'Connor, Drew Barrymore, Tammy Faye Bakker, Kathie Lee Gifford, Kitty Dukakis, Diane Sawyer and Hillary Clinton.

Tiring of the stress of performing on a live show, Hooks left SNL in 1991 after being asked by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason to replace Jean Smart on the CBS sitcom Designing Women. Hooks played the role of Carlene Dobber for the final two seasons of the show. She continued to make occasional appearances on SNL through 1994, usually playing Hillary Clinton.

According to a 2014 Grantland article about her career and death, Hooks' combination of anxiety about acting and generally laidback approach to seeking out work led to her often turning down both prestigious auditions and lucrative acting roles. Tina Fey commented after her death that she was angry that Hooks didn't have a more successful career (Fey compared Hooks to Rob Schneider in noting Hooks was a bigger star than him on SNL and should have at least had his level of success) but another friend stated that Hooks didn't have doors slammed in her face and often made no efforts to seek out work.[8] She appeared in several movies, starred as Dixie Glick in the series Primetime Glick, and the movie Jiminy Glick in Lalawood. She had a recurring role as the trashy Vicki Dubcek on 3rd Rock from the Sun, which earned Hooks an Emmy Award nomination. Hooks guest-starred on two Matt Groening-produced cartoons for the FOX Network: six episodes of The Simpsons between 1997 and 2002, as Apu's wife Manjula (although Tress MacNeille sometimes substituted for her, and eventually replaced Hooks),[9] and in Futurama (in the episode "Bendless Love" as the voice of a female robot named Angleyne).[10] She appeared in Pee-wee's Big Adventure as a know-it-all tour guide at the Alamo and made a cameo appearance in the 1992 movie Batman Returns as Jen, the Penguin's image consultant during his campaign to become Mayor of Gotham City. She made two appearances on 30 Rock in 2010 playing Jenna Maroney's mother, Verna, which ultimately were the last live-action spots she ever did. She guest starred in a 2013 episode of The Cleveland Show called "Mr. and Mrs. Brown", which was her final acting job.[10]

Hooks died on October 9, 2014, at her home in Woodstock, New York, at the age of 57[1][4] from throat cancer.[8] Her remains were interred in Northview Cemetery in Cedartown, Georgia.

The Simpsons episode "Super Franchise Me" memorialized her on October 12, 2014, with her longtime character Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon honored during the credits.[11]

• Saturday Night Live parodies of Hillary Clinton

• Jan Hooks on IMDb
• Jan Hooks at Find a Grave