Jan Hooks, The Reluctant SNL Star
Alan Light/Wikimedia CommonsJan Hooks was a reluctant but beloved SNL member before her untimely death.
Of her time on SNL, Jan Hooks once told biographer Mike Thomas: “I mean, you can’t tell how shit-scared I was… I didn’t like it! …It’s just not my thing. The music was too loud. The people, the energy of it just made me very nervous. [It was] an awful, awful time… I didn’t want to be [famous]. I didn’t want to be on TV!”
Hooks might have been a reluctant SNL star, but she was a beloved one. And her death in 2014 at the age of 57 from throat cancer was widely mourned.
Born on April 23, 1957, Jan Hooks made her comedic start with the Groundlings, an L.A.-based comedy troupe. She joined the SNL cast in 1986, and made an impression with her portrayals of people like Ivana Trump, Tammy Faye Bakker, and Nancy Reagan.
NBCJan Hooks as Hillary Clinton.
But though Hooks delighted audiences, she found the experience terrifying and struggled with stage fright throughout her SNL run.
“I was one of the ones that between dress and air was sitting in a corner going, ‘Please cut everything I’m in!'” she once exclaimed, according to the New York Times.
Hooks appeared in TV shows and movies after leaving SNL in 1991, but her discomfort with fame meant that she didn’t reach the heights of stardom that some thought she deserved. Jan Hooks died of throat cancer on Oct. 9, 2014 at the age of 57.
