Interview: SNL's Terry Sweeney was the First Openly Gay Regular on Network Television (and Lived to Tell About It!)

In the 1985-86 season of Saturday Night Live, comedian Terry Sweeney made history by becoming the first (and still the only) openly gay cast member of the landmark late-night comedy show.

But the achievement was more notable even than that: Sweeney was also the first out actor with a regular role on broadcast television ever.

And what did he get for his bravery? Despite the fact that Sweeney had performed one of SNL's bonafide break-out characters (a parody of a particularly vapid Nancy Reagan), he was unceremoniously fired, along with most of the rest of a cast that also included Robert Downey, Jr., Joan Cusack, and Randy Quaid, at the end of a season that was widely regarded as a failure.

As an out gay actor at the height of the AIDS crisis, Sweeney didn't work again for ten years.

But Sweeney was a survivor, eventually finding work as his first love, a comedy writer, usually with his partner, Lanier Laney; the two wrote the 1989 cult classic Shag (set in South Carolina, where the couple now live) and worked on MADTV and the outrageous animated comedy show Tripping the Rift. Sweeney also found occasional acting work, most notably guesting on Seinfeld.

AfterElton.com has long tried to talk to Sweeney, who played an important role in gay pop culture history, but he's been extremely difficult to track down. Finally, a friend told a friend that we wanted to tell his story, and he got in touch with us at long last.

He definitely didn't disappoint. His story is a fascinating one.

AfterElton: How did you first get involved with Saturday Night Live?
Terry Sweeney: I was a writer [on the show] first. When I first became a writer I was, like a lot of people, just working in a restaurant, catering, and then my friend said that Saturday Night Live was accepting people, you know, looking for writers. I had no agent or anything so I said, “Oh, well maybe I should apply.” I mean, it’s a dream for a lot of comedy writers. And he said, “Don’t bother. It’s the last day, it’s too late.”

I didn’t believe that, and I stayed up all night, wrote a bunch of sketches, and then the next day I went to the Carnegie Deli, and I ordered five or six sandwiches and potato salad and all kinds of things, and I went to the studio guard and I said, “Lunch for Saturday Night Live.” Now this is all before 9/11, so you could do that. And they said, “Lunch? Well, I’m not bringing it up!” Then they said, “Take the elevator up to the blah blah blah.” So I go to the elevator, I get off the elevator and someone is standing there, and I say, “Lunch for Saturday Night Live.” And somebody else said, “Well, bring it in, it’s right down there.”

And then I got to the desk, and I said “Lunch for Saturday Night Live.” “Oh well maybe the producer ordered it, the office is right this way.” And I went in, and she said, “I didn’t order lunch.” And I said, “I know, these are my sketches, I’m a writer and I said, 'Please read them. Just read them, and lunch is on me. What do you think?'”

But I thought, she’s never going to read them. And then about seven days later, I got a call and she said, “Where are you? What do you do?” And I said, “Catering.” Like a million other gay guys. “Catering and waiting tables.” And she said, “Get over here now! You’re a comedy writer.” And I did, and I was hired. 

AE: Was this the famous [post-Lorne Michaels] producer Jean Doumanian?
TS: Yes, I went through Jean Doumanian, and she was pretty scary.

AE: So at this point did you see yourself solely as a writer or did you see yourself as a comic?
TS: I was funny. I was acting. I had gone to auditions, I’d done, you know, some stand-up comedy, but I didn’t really like the stand-up comedy world, maybe because I was gay. And it was such a straight macho kind of grisly business, you know? I didn’t really have the courage to do it back then. Now I’d been the star of my high school talent show. I had a lot of confirmation that I was funny and people loved me, but that’s different from being in the big city.

AE: At this point, were you out as a gay person and did that contribute to anything you wrote for the show?
TS: I was out. I don’t think I was ever "in" after college. That was it, so I never hid anything. Yeah, I’d always put something gay in there, always something crazy. I actually made fun of other things. Like I did Billy Graham singing Christian telegrams.

Next Page! How Al Franken suggested Terry become Nancy Reagan!