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Quick Facts
- NAME: Amy Poehler
- OCCUPATION: Film Actress, Theater Actress, Television Actress, Comedian
- BIRTH DATE: September 16, 1971 (Age: 41)
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Newton, Massachusetts
- ZODIAC SIGN: Virgo
Best Known For
Amy Poehler is an actress and comedian famous for her work on Saturday Night Live and Parks and Recreation.
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Play NowAmy Poehler. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 06:10, Jun 19, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/amy-poehler-586004.
Amy Poehler. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/amy-poehler-586004 [Accessed 19 Jun 2013].
"Amy Poehler." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jun 19 2013, 06:10 http://www.biography.com/people/amy-poehler-586004.
"Amy Poehler," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/amy-poehler-586004 [accessed Jun 19, 2013].
"Amy Poehler," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/amy-poehler-586004 (accessed Jun 19, 2013).
Amy Poehler [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 Jun 19] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/amy-poehler-586004.
Amy Poehler, http://www.biography.com/people/amy-poehler-586004 (last visited Jun 19, 2013).
Amy Poehler. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/amy-poehler-586004. Accessed Jun 19, 2013.
Synopsis
Amy Poehler was born on September 16, 1971 in Newton, Massachusetts and attended Boston College. After graduation, she moved to Chicago and joined the improv troupe, Second City and the Upright Citizens' Brigade. Poehler's big break came when she was hired as a featured performer on Saturday Night Live. Poehler currently stars on Parks and Recreation.
Entry into Comedy
Actress, comedian. Born September 16, 1971, in the Boston suburb of Newton, Massachusetts. Amy Poehler grew up in Burlington, Massachusetts with parents Eileen and William Poehler, both schoolteachers. At Boston College, the petite (5-foot 2-inch) Poehler became a member of the college's improvisational comedy troupe, My Mother's Fleabag.
After graduation, she moved to Chicago in 1993 to pursue a professional career in comedy, joining the comedy theaters ImprovOlympics and Second City, which have produced famous alumni including Stephen Colbert, Chris Farley, Mike Myers and Tina Fey. Poehler and Fey, who would later become famous together on Saturday Night Live (SNL), met each other through an improv group called Inside Vladimir, which someone had named after an adult video found at a local convenience store. "I believe there was some kind of Russian theme, but the story was lost on me very quickly," Poehler recalled. The two became friends immediately.
Saturday Night Live
Poehler soon became part of a comedic troupe called the Upright Citizens' Brigade, a spin-off of ImprovOlympics. In 1996, she and her fellow comics moved UCB to New York City, where the troupe scored regular gigs on The Conan O'Brien Show and, later, a show of its own on Comedy Central in 1998. After a few years in New York, Poehler got her big break when she was hired as a featured performer on Saturday Night Live.
Amy Poehler debuted in September 2001, appearing in the first SNL show to air after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She played a horrified employee in a sketch where Will Ferrell shows up to the office in a patriotic thong. She was promoted from featured player to full cast member midway through her first season, becoming the first woman and only the third person ever (after Harry Shearer and Eddie Murphy) to do so. When Jimmy Fallon left the show in 2004, Poehler joined Tina Fey as a co-anchor of Weekend Update.
Big Screen Roles & Marriage
Poehler and comedian Will Arnett married in 2003. The couple worked together in the series Arrested Development, playing a couple that accidentally gets married, and again in the 2007 film Blades of Glory, as a brother-sister figure skating team. "They commit so hard, and they'll do anything," Tina Fey said of the couple. "They're both fantastic-looking people, but they don't care. They'll look goofy."
In 2004, Poehler starred in the film Mean Girls, famously playing the surgically-enhanced "cool mom" of Rachel McAdams, who is only seven years her junior in real life. In 2008, Poehler and Fey teamed up to star in Baby Mama, where Poehler plays a surrogate mother carrying a child for an uptight Fey.
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Cast of Saturday Night Live
View groupLearn more about the cast of Saturday Night Live, including old-timers such as John Belushi, Billy Crystal, Jane Curtin, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Eddie Murphy and David Spade, as well as newer stars of the series, including Tracy Morgan, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Andy Samberg, Jason Sudeikis, Seth Meyers, Kate McKinnon and Kristen Wiig.
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Live Talks Los Angeles
View groupBIO is a proud sponsor of Live Talks Los Angeles, an organization which features live conversations with prominent writers, artists, actors, musicians, influencers and business thought leaders. Proceeds from ticket sales support worthwhile literacy, arts and educational causes. Below are some of the featured guests.
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Screen Presidents
View groupSee our group of screen presidents, which includes actors who have played real-life American presidents as well as faux chief executives. Biography.com's Screen President group includes Frank Langella, Morgan Freeman, Josh Brolin, Dana Carvey, Will Ferrell, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Harrison Ford, Anthony Hopkins, Daniel Day-Lewis and many more.
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