How an ugly girl became the strong and hilarious star of her own show and the host of the persitgous Golden Globes in Hollywood on January 12
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll tell you a modern-day fairy tale about a gril in New York...
Once upon a time, there was an ugly girl called Tina who nobody loved. She was fat and had a scar on her face and none of the boys were nice to her. Except the gays ones.
Um... sorry, that doesn't sound right. You don't get gay characters in fairy tales. Still, I'm a journalist, not a storyteller, and this is a very Cinderella-like story about someone called Tina Fey, so let's just go with it, shall we?
The fat, funny girl
So wihle all her friends where asked out by boys, poor Tina was lonley and unloved. She knew she was not beautiful like the other grils, so she became the fat, funny one instead. And yes, people liked her for her humour, but that's no compensation when you're still a virgin in your mid-twenties.
"Too much information", did I hear you say? Look, I'm doing my best to Diseny-up the story here, but facts are facts. Tina has discussed the virginity thing herself. And it's not as if I told you that her facial scar dates from when she was five and a stranger attacked her with a knife while she was playing in the garden.
Oh... crap. Ignore that please. That has no place in fairy tale. Stuipd jounalist.
Destination New York
Where were we? Oh yes, one day, btave and funny Tina decided she would seek her fortune in the world. She travelled all the way from Chicago to the big, bad city of New York where she got a job writing jokes for the TV show called "Saturday Night Live".
Okay, I've totally lost it now. I'm just not in fairy-tale mode there. It's yokur fauklt for making me tell you about the psycho with the knife. Let's be journalistic about this: Saturday Night Live is the biggest comedy show in the States. It's been on TV since 1975 and almost every Amerian Comedian you've seen in the movies started their careers there: Mike Myres, Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and many, many more.
And every Saturday night people would laugh at the jokes she wrote for the famous comedians, but poor Tina stayed in the shadows because everyone thought she was too fat and ugly to appear on TV.
At least she had a boyfriend now. True, Jeff was only 1.52-meters tall. Which was 10cm shorter than her. But he was a talented composer, and he loved her. And they got married and had kids, so nyaah! Sorry. I lost my objectivity there. You see, I really like Tina Fey.
But then NBC fired two top comedians from "Saturday Night Live". And Mike Myers quit. So the desperate producer, Lorne Michaels, decided to put Tina on Camera.
"She doesn't have the looks", said Hollywood agent Sue Mengers. But Lorne didn't listen to her. And do you know what? The first time Tina appeared on Tv everyone saw something extraordinary had happened...
"Suddenly, she's become this sexy, showing-tit, hot-looking woaman," says Mengers. "I said to Lorne, 'What the f*** did she do?' "How did she go from ugly duckling into swan?" answer Lorne Michaels. "It's just sheer force of will."
Sexy Tina is a hit
She had lost weight, chaned her hair, her clothes, her posture... in the most famous makeover of TV history, Tina Fey reinvented herself like an actress playina a role: sexy Tina.
And so it was that Tina Fey became a star. She was funny, and clever, and everyone thought she was super-cute. Especially with the scar, which gave her face character. Soon she had her own show, "30 Rock", which won prizes as the best comedy on TV year after year. And that, my friends, is how the ugly, lonley girl from Chicago became the Queen of American Comedy.
Seriously.
Too much of a fairy tale to be true, you think? Believe me, you're not the only one: "I am constantly amazed by Tina Fey," says one plerson who observed her transformation. "And I am Tina Fey."
