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Molly Shannon: "Saturday Night Live"

 Molly Shannon's father, a closeted gay man, was driving a car. He had his family with him. He'd had too many drinks. It seems he fell asleep and drove the car into a pole; three people died. One was Molly's infant sister; the cause of death was later listed as "putrification of the brain."


I don't know how Molly forgave her father, but she did, and then she lived for many years with this damaged man (who should maybe not have had any children in his care). Molly's neck was dirty because her father couldn't climb the stairs to wash her. Molly's father would scream with jealousy if Molly spent too much time with a schoolyard friend. And Molly's father encouraged his prepubescent daughter to smuggle herself onto a flight to New York; when Molly succeeded, her dad said, "Find some way to get yourself back to Cleveland. I'm not paying for the ticket."

My old teacher Amy is fond of saying: "Two people get hit by a bus--one becomes a mopey shut-in, and the other remains the life of the party. Actions reveal character; actions do not *determine* character." It's hard to imagine persevering, if you're in Molly Shannon's shoes. But Molly talked her way into NYU, worked full-time in her Tisch years, invented her own characters ("because if you're a woman, and you're waiting for others to write parts for you, good luck with that"). Molly impressed Lorne Michaels, who altered his casting for "SNL," as a result. But Lorne didn't immediately know what he had secured for himself. It's only when an audience roared with hysteria, in a dress rehearsal, in response to Molly Shannon, that a Shannon skit was promoted to the "top spot" for Saturday night.

That skit featured Mary Katherine Gallagher, a nervous student at St. Monica's High School. The priest--Gabriel Byrne--needs performers for a talent show. Mary Katherine auditions with a true-crime monologue from "The Betty Broderick Story," sniffs her own armpits, in terror, then throws herself at a wall of collapsible metal chairs. You see someone from the outside determined to "get in": Although the actual stakes are pretty low, the stakes, for Mary Katherine, are life-and-death. It's impossible not to cheer for this weirdo.

Shannon became the first SNL actor--in a long, long while--to score an Emmy nomination.

I wish Shannon's book looked more closely at her high-profile roles; for example, Shannon is now the muse for Mike White, who might be America's greatest living screenwriter, but White gets literally just one paragraph in the memoir.

Still, I loved the bizarre stories, and, like Aubrey Plaza, I think this may be "the most inspiring memoir I've ever read."

My two cents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY2bBzz5kwc
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