(COMEDIAN) And this just in: Colin Quinn, 39, writer, playwright and stand-up comic, is knocking 'em dead as the anchorman of Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update. Sample bit: Announcing that Tom Cruise had won a settlement against a tabloid that called him gay, Quinn quipped, "Cruise scampered off with the money and blew it all on shoes." The comic, who cut his TV teeth on MTV's '80s game show Remote Control before becoming an SNL writer in '96, replaced his pal Norm Macdonald in the chair last January, a controversial move by NBC that angered some fans. "That was tough," admits Quinn, "because Norm was such a gentleman throughout." But audiences soon took to Quinn, and SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels knows why. "People will go a little further with Colin," he says, "because he's so likeable." The son of Irish-American teachers, Quinn displayed a more humane side late last summer in his one-man Broadway show An Irish Wake, a bittersweet take on a Brooklyn neighborhood.
He also snagged a hefty advance to write a book ("Half memoir, half Thomas Aquinas,"
he says), and a CD of his stand-up bits is in the works. Along with his success, though, lurks an odd mission. "I used to get my news from Weekend Update," says the single Quinn. "It's sad but true. And there are other idiots like me out there. So my job's important."

HOME BIO NEWS APPEARANCES PICS SOUNDS
ARTICLES&INTERVIEWS SNL TV MOVIES THEATRE LINKS