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Harriet Hayes

Harriet Hayes
First appearance Pilot
Created by Aaron Sorkin
Portrayed by Sarah Paulson
Information
Nickname(s) Harry
Gender Female
Occupation Actress/comedian

Hannah Harriet Hayes is a fictional character on the US television series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, played by Sarah Paulson. The character is loosely based on actress Kristin Chenoweth (who had dated Studio 60 creator Aaron Sorkin and starred in Sorkin's previous series, The West Wing, after Sorkin had left it); there is an opinion that she is also at least partially based on former Saturday Night Live comedian Victoria Jackson.

Hayes describes much of her personal history to Vanity Fair journalist Martha O'Dell in "The Long Lead Story". Hayes was born in Brighton, Michigan to a father who worked in a paper processing plant and a mother who was a secretary in a doctor's office. She has six brothers, all older and none of them religious. It was her mother, a devout Baptist, who introduced Harriet —who uses her middle name because a Hannah Hayes was already on the rolls of the Screen Actors Guild — to Christianity, taking her to church every Sunday. By the age of six, Harriet was able to quote entire passages of scripture.

Hayes claims to have become a comedian and a Christian at more or less the same time, at the age of 11: "My mother put me in church plays and one time I just went up on a line and to cover I went into a Judy Holliday impression. There was stunned silence until the minister burst out laughing, and I looked and I saw the pride on my mother's face, and I told her I was ready to accept Christ and I was baptised."

Hayes got her Bachelor's degree in music at Rutgers University on an academic scholarship and was offered a scholarship for a Master's degree in music at Kansas State University, but turned it down in order to pursue a career in comedy. She started at The Second City in Chicago, where she swept up after shows, and later moved to L.A. where she interned with the Groundlings. It was there that she was discovered by Danny Tripp, who got her an audition for Studio 60.


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