Nerd pinup Tina Fey has presided over Saturday Night Live as head writer and now stars on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock.

Elizabeth Stamatina Fey grew up in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, a straight-A student who performed comedy routines with her older brother in their living room. Fey joined the cast of Second City in 1990 and moved to New York to join Saturday Night Live in 1997; in 1999, she became the show's head writer, the first woman to occupy the job. After sufficiently impressing SNL boss Lorne Michaels-and losing some 35 pounds on Weight Watchers-Fey stepped in front of the camera in 2000 and began co-hosting "Weekend Update."

In 2004, she penned the script and co-starred alongside Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls and in 2005 Fey left SNL to develop the Emmy winning 30 Rock. Although Fey has kept an eye on the big screen, starring in Baby Mama with Poehler and Date Night with Steve Carell, the late-aughts were marked by her outstanding guest stints on SNL as then vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Continuing to expand her horizons, Fey took a stab at the print world with her memoir Bossypants in 2011. [Image via Getty]