Comic actor Jane Curtin made her mark in television with three successful series each begun in and representative of a different decade. Her first two series coincided with and participated in the revival and redefinition of two familiar televisual forms: live comedy-variety and situation comedy. The former resurgence was initiated by Curtin’s show NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) in 1975. The later revival encompassed many new sitcoms in 1984, among them Kate and Allie, in which Curtin played divorced homemaker-mom Allie Lowell. Then, in 1996, capitalizing on the audience’s support of science fiction in film and television, situation comedy’s proven endurance, and Curtin’s proven record, Third Rock from the Sun debuted, casting Curtin as colleague, then love interest, to the (undercover) commander of a troupe of alien visitors to Earth.

One of the original “Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Players” on SNL, Curtin had the distinction of being the only cast member producer Lorne Michaels hired cold. Though she had, like other cast members, worked in improvisational theater (“The Proposition”), Michaels had not met her or worked with her before, as he had with the rest of the cast. Less facile with physical comedy than Chevy Chase, less disposed to creating the broad characters of Gilda Radner, with a less elastic face than John Belushi, Curtin’s perfect posture, cool, sophisticated demeanor, and classic strong-boned beauty made her a fitting choice for many “straight” parts. While Curtin would do a fair share of absurd characters (e.g., the nasal Mrs. Loopner, the mother in the Big Butts family; Prymaat Conehead, the mother in a family from another planet), more often than other women in the cast from 1975 to 1980 she played the “serious” roles (e.g., weekend anchor, Shana Alexander–type political combatant to Dan Akroyd’s James Kilpatrick). Where Gilda Radner would outrageously parody journalist Barbara Walters (as Baba WaWa), Jane Curtin would do a deadpan imitation of liberal commentator Shana Alexander, maintaining her élan even as Akroyd’s conservative Kilpatrick character began his rebuttal with the infamous line, “Jane, you ignorant slut.” Yet, despite her cool, square-jawed stoicism, Curtin could instantly abandon herself to riotous slapstick, using the break in her persona to comic effect. This yin-yang style became something of a trademark in scenes from all three series.

In an interview with James Brady years later Curtin was asked how she would rate her experience on SNL. She said on a scale of one to ten, it was a ten. Curtin was nominated for two Emmy Awards for her work on SNL before she left the show in 1980. She did not return to a television series until 1984.

Kate and Allie, premiering in March 1984, was a part of a resurgence in the sitcom genre. The family consisted of two divorced mothers, Kate McArdle and Allie Lowell, who decide to rent an apartment and raise their three children together. Once again Curtin played the more conventional character: abandoned traditional wife and mother Allie.

During the program’s six-year run, Allie grew from a shy homebody through a returning college student to an entrepreneur running her own catering business through her domestic culinary and organizational skills. Thus, Curtin was again playing a many-sided woman who seemed easily stereotyped at first glance but exhibited hidden resources. She won two Emmy Awards for her portrayals for the 1983–84 and the 1984–85 seasons. She stayed with the show until it ended in 1990.

Curtin worked on stage and appeared in a number of movies, both for the big screen and for television, during and after Kate and Allie, and she tried another series that was not successful (Working It Out, 1990). It wasn’t until January 1996 that she again “hit” with a program that drew on both sitcom formula and the growing popularity of science fiction TV programs, Third Rock from the Sun.

The premise of Third Rock was reminiscent of the Coneheads, as a group of aliens land on Earth and live as a human family. The leader, played by John Lithgow, posed as a professor colleague of anthropologist Mary Allbright (Curtin). The interplay between the characters drew on Curtin’s past style. Her Dr. Allbright, a conventional professional academic with a sober exterior, often broke character to partake in the absurd behaviors of the aliens (e.g., breaking into show tunes in a diner, getting aroused by a slap in the face). Third Rock from the Sun ran from January 1996 to May 2001.

Curtin has done a number of straight dramatic roles on stage and in made-for-television movies. Those arenas were bridged in 2003 when she took part in the Westport County Playhouse production of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, which aired on Showtime and PBS. The play, starring Paul Newman, featured Curtin in a supporting role. Praised for her understated performance and comic timing, Curtin seemed to have found yet another milieu in which to mix and rebalance her comic and dramatic talents.

Meanwhile, Saturday Night Live, Kate and Allie, and Third Rock from the Sun play in perpetual syndication, making the programs, and Jane Curtin, an enduring part of television.