American comedian and actress Rachel Dratch was born on February 22, 1966 in Lexington, Massachusetts. During her stint at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where she took up degrees in drama and psychology, she was a member of the improv comedy group Dog Day Players. She also became a member of the mainstage cast of Chicago-based comedy troupe The Second City, where she performed with other future comedy luminaries, including Adam McKay, Scott Adsit, and Tina Fey.
Dratch gained national recognition through her stint on Saturday Night Live. She joined the show in 1999 as a featured player, and eventually worked her way up as a regular cast member in 2001. She became particularly known for her recurring character Debbie Downer, a depressed woman whose disturbing non sequitur observations scare the people around her and make them uncomfortable. The character’s first sketch became infamous when every other performer in the sketch—including guest host Lindsay Lohan and Dratch herself—broke character because of Downer’s statements about infertility and feline AIDS. She also impersonated numerous personalities, including Kelly Osbourne, Hillary Clinton, Martha Stewart, Britney Spears, Barbara Walters, Anne Robinson and Arianna Huffington. She performed for SNL for seven seasons, and holds the distinction for being the show’s longest-running female performer.
Dratch let the show in 2006 to join the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, which stars her SNL co-star Tina Fey. Originally, she is supposed to play the role of Jenna Maroney, the star of the show-within-a-show The Girlie Show, but the role instead went to Jane Krakowski. Nevertheless, she has appeared on many episodes in the first season, playing different characters.
Dratch has also appeared in several films during her career, including Down with Love, Looking for Kitty, The Pleasure Drivers, Click, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and My Life in Ruins.
- In 1988, she graduated from Dartmouth College.
- She attended Second City mainstage.
- As a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" (1975), the first impression she did was that of Calista Flockhart.
- She gave birth to son Eli Benjamin on August 24, 2010.
- She can play the cello.
- In 1997, she received the Joseph Jefferson Award for Actress in a Revue for "Paradigm Lost" at the Second City Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. She also won the next year, this time for "Promise Keepers, Losers Weepers."