Anne Beatts

Anne Beatts (born February 25, 1947 in Buffalo, New York) is an American comedy writer.

Born to parents Beatts describes as "beatniks", Beatts grew to have what has been called an "aggressive, dark sensibility" which she later put to use in the world of comedy. Growing up in Somers, New York, she later attended McGill University.

It was at McGill University where the Beatts discovered the darkly tragic humor of Jewish writers J. D. Salinger, Philip Roth, and Bruce Jay Friedman. At this time, Beatts converted to Judaism.

After graduating from college, Beatts joined National Lampoon magazine, a national offshoot of the Harvard Lampoon. She brought her dark sense of humor to her work, and co-wrote a parody advertisement for Volkswagen with Philip Socci for which the magazine was later sued by the car company. The advertisement stated, "If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he'd be President today," accompanied by a photograph of a VW Beetle floating on a lake (an allusion to Kennedy's Chappaquiddick incident).

Beatts became the first female editor of National Lampoon magazine, where she worked with Michael O'Donoghue. The two became romantically involved, and both soon joined the creative team of Saturday Night Live in the early years of the program.

Beatts is regarded as something of a pioneer in TV and comedy circles, as an early female comedy writer and one of the very few female writers working in the National Lampoon/SNL comedy scene of the 1970s. At SNL she was nominated for an Emmy five times, winning once. She later won a Writer's Guild Award in 2001. She created the cult hit 1982 CBS series Square Pegs and appeared in several episodes (she also did uncredited acting work on the early SNL), and while the series lasted only one season it has been frequently rerun since and several of the cast members (most notably Sarah Jessica Parker) have gone on to greater fame.

...
Wikipedia