Laraine New­man didn’t just make com­e­dy his­to­ry — she lived it.

As one of the three orig­i­nal women of Sat­ur­day Night Live along­side Gil­da Rad­ner and Jane Curtin, Laraine brought a sharp, sur­re­al, and satir­i­cal edge to a show still try­ing to fig­ure out what it was. And from day one, she was fear­less.

Born and raised in Los Ange­les, Laraine trained in mime in Paris before join­ing the leg­endary Groundlings improv troupe, which she co-found­ed. She brought char­ac­ter work that was detailed, strange, and bril­liant — the kind of com­e­dy that didn’t just go for laughs, but cre­at­ed entire worlds in sec­onds.

On SNL, she played every­thing from spaced-out val­ley girls and eccen­tric teens to Joan of Arc and Sher­ry the stew­ardess.
Her work was sub­tle but sur­gi­cal. Always in con­trol, always off­beat, and always her own thing.

She once said:
“I didn’t need to be the loud­est in the room. I just want­ed to be dif­fer­ent — and I was.”

And she was. Qui­et­ly rebel­lious. Dark­ly fun­ny. And one of the most orig­i­nal voic­es to ever come out of the show’s first cast.

Laraine helped pave the way for gen­er­a­tions of women in com­e­dy — not by shout­ing, but by stay­ing weird, stay­ing sharp, and show­ing that being your­self is some­times the bold­est choice of all.

This isn’t just a vin­tage pho­to.
It’s a por­trait of a trail­blaz­er who made space for women to be strange, smart, sub­tle, and com­plete­ly unfor­get­table on live TV.

LaraineNewman #SNL #SaturdayNightLive #ComedyHistory #GildaRadner #JaneCurtin #OriginalCast #WomenInComedy #TheGroundlings #VintageSNL #SketchComedy #MetaNostalgia #ComedyLegends #LoveGilda