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Lorne Michaels, the inimitable man behind “Saturday Night Live,” has his story definitively told for the first time in a new biography from Susan Morrison. After coming earlier this month, ahead of the the show’s 50th anniversary special, it has topped the bestseller list on Amazon.
Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live
The NBC impresario is known for showing very little of his life off-camera so it was an impressive feat for Morrison, an articles editor at The New Yorker, to get the candid access she did for the 600-page tome. She took advantage of their mutual network, which included people she met working as an assistant at “The New Show,” one of Michaels’ ill-fated efforts during his famous sojourn away from “SNL” after its fifth season.
“I don’t need anything from you, because I have connections in your world, but if you want to talk to me, open up to me, it would be a better book, a richer book,” she recalls telling him in an interview with Variety‘s Brian Steinberg. “Your legacy deserves that.” Michaels “looked like he was going to faint,” Morrison added. “He had made a lifetime habit of staying out of the frame. He’s a private person.”
The book is a product of Morrison’s weekly Friday-evening conversations with the seminal producer, and dozens of conversations with those in his coveted orbit — from those in his early life, such as his mom Florence Lipowitz and ex-wife Rosie Schuster, to “SNL” legends such as Chris Rock, Bill Hader and Tina Fey.
Stream the “SNL 50” special on Peacock, and order Lorne Michaels’ biography below:
