Terry Sweeney is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 writer, comedian and actor.

Saturday Night Live

Sweeney is best known for his appearances as a regular cast member of Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...

(SNL) during that program's 1985-86 season.

Sweeney, who is not related to fellow SNL alumna Julia Sweeney

Julia Sweeney

Julia Anne Sweeney is an American actress, comedian and author best known as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for her autobiographical solo shows.-Personal life:...

, had also been a writer of sketches for SNL during the early 1980s under producer Jean Doumanian

Jean Doumanian

Jean Doumanian is an American producer.Doumanian is probably most well known for her short reign as producer of Saturday Night Live between November 1980 and March 1981...

 prior to being hired as a member of the cast.

He was SNL's first openly

Coming out

Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....

 gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

 cast member; Sweeney was "out" prior to being hired as a cast member. Sweeney's run on the show came at a time when there were few openly gay characters or actors on television.

According to the book Live from New York: The Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, during a sketch on the Madonna

Madonna (entertainer)

Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...

/Simple Minds

Simple Minds

Simple Minds are a Scottish rock band who achieved worldwide popularity from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. The band produced a handful of critically acclaimed albums in the early 1980s and best known for their #1 US, Canada and Netherlands hit single "Don't You ", from the soundtrack of the...

 episode where he plays a gay actor who pretends to be straight in order to star in a movie, a stage light falls into an empty pool, causing Sweeney to shriek and nearly fall out of his chair. This action was not scripted nor planned. (The book erroneously states that this happened to Damon Wayans

Damon Wayans

Damon Kyle Wayans is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor, one of the Wayans brothers.-Early life:Wayans was born in New York City, New York, the son of Elvira, a homemaker and social worker, and Howell Wayans, a supermarket manager...

, who only appeared on the episode in a commercial parody.)

During his season on SNL, he became known for his celebrity impersonations, particularly female impersonations of stars like Diana Ross

Diana Ross

Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...

, Patti LaBelle

Patti LaBelle

Patricia Louise Holte-Edwards , better known under the stage name, Patti LaBelle, is a Grammy Award winning American singer, author and actress who has spent over 50 years in the music industry...

, Joan Collins

Joan Collins

Joan Henrietta Collins, OBE , is an English actress, author, and columnist. Born in Paddington and raised in Maida Vale, Collins grew up during the Second World War. At the age of nine, she made her stage debut in A Doll's House and after attending school, she was classically trained as an actress...

, Brooke Shields

Brooke Shields

Brooke Christa Shields is an American actress and model. Some of her better-known movies include Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon, as well as TV shows such as Suddenly Susan, That '70s Show and Lipstick Jungle....

's mother Teri Shields, and Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers

Joan Rivers is an American comedian, television personality and actress. She is known for her brash manner; her loud, raspy voice with a heavy New York accent; and her numerous cosmetic surgeries...

, as well as Ted Kennedy

Ted Kennedy

Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. Serving almost 47 years, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died and is the fourth-longest-serving senator in United States history...

 (the only male celebrity he impersonated). His most notable recurring character was a portrayal of then-First Lady Nancy Reagan

Nancy Reagan

Nancy Davis Reagan is the widow of former United States President Ronald Reagan and was First Lady of the United States from 1981 to 1989....

; Sweeney was told by Ron Reagan

Ron Reagan

Ronald Prescott "Ron" Reagan sometimes known as Ronald Reagan, Jr., is a former talk radio host and chief political analyst for KIRO radio in Seattle until his show was canceled on August 8, 2007...

, who hosted one of that season's episodes, that he was "more like his mother than she is."

Other credits

Sweeney has written for the FOX TV

Fox Broadcasting Company

Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

 series MADtv

MADtv

MADtv is an American sketch comedy television series. It licensed the name and logo of Mad, but otherwise had no connection with the humor magazine outside the animated Spy vs. Spy and Don Martin cartoon shorts and images of Alfred E. Neuman that the show featured during the late 1990s. Its first...

, The WB

The WB Television Network

The WB Television Network is a former television network in the United States that was launched on January 11, 1995 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and Tribune Broadcasting. On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Warner Bros...

's short-lived sketch comedy series Hype, and Sci Fi Channel

Sci Fi Channel (United States)

Syfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...

's Tripping the Rift

Tripping the Rift

Tripping the Rift is a CGI science fiction comedy television series. It is based on two short animations published on the Internet by Chris Moeller and Chuck Austen. The series was produced by CineGroupe in association with the Sci Fi Channel...

, among a few others, all with his partner, Lanier Laney.

Sweeney's major film credit was as the co-screenwriter for the film Shag

Shag (1989 film)

Shag is a 1989 comedy film starring Bridget Fonda, Phoebe Cates, Annabeth Gish, Page Hannah, Jeff Yagher and Scott Coffey. The film features Carolina shag dancing and was produced in cooperation with the North Carolina Film Commission. The soundtrack album was on Sire/Warner Bros...

, which was released in 1989.

Stand-up routine for Coming Out Party.

Episodes of Tripping the Rift Written By Sweeney and Laney

• "Mutilation Ball" (also written with Sy Rosen)
• "Power to the Peephole"
• "Android Love"
• "Roswell"
• "Creaturepalooza"
• "Chode's Near-Death Experience"
• "Six, Lies, and Videotape"

Personal life

Terry Sweeney's partner is Lanier Laney, a comedy writer who also wrote for SNL in the 1985-1986 season. The couple met at the now-defunct Chaps Bar in New York years after Sweeney graduated from Middlebury College and they have been together ever since. Laney and Sweeney were also writing partners for Saturday Night Live during the 1985-1986 season, the movie Shag

Shag (1989 film)

Shag is a 1989 comedy film starring Bridget Fonda, Phoebe Cates, Annabeth Gish, Page Hannah, Jeff Yagher and Scott Coffey. The film features Carolina shag dancing and was produced in cooperation with the North Carolina Film Commission. The soundtrack album was on Sire/Warner Bros...

, and the Sci-Fi Channel cartoon Tripping The Rift. Currently, the couple reside in Beaufort

Beaufort

-People and titles:* Beaufort , the surname of many people* House of Beaufort, English nobility* Duke of Beaufort , a title in the peerage of England* Duke of Beaufort , a title in the French nobility-Places:...

, South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

.

External links