Lorne Michaels Gets Biography: ‘The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live’

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Lorne Michaels, the not-so behind-the-scenes figure who created Saturday Night Live, is the subject of a new biography. Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live, from author Susan Morrison, arrives February 18, 2025, via Random House. It’s available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here. Michaels has been in the news a lot recently thanks to the 50th anniversary specials for the sketch comedy series.

From the publisher’s announcement: Over the fifty years that Michaels has been at the helm of Saturday Night Live—conveniently ignoring the five seasons that he stepped aside beginning in 1980—he has become a revered and inimitable presence in the entertainment world. He’s a tastemaker, a mogul, a withholding father figure, a genius spotter of talent, a shrewd businessman, a name-dropper, a raconteur, the inspiration for the character Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers film series, the winner of more than a hundred Emmys—and, essentially, a mystery. Generations of writers and performers have spent their lives trying to figure him out, by turns demonizing and lionizing him. He’s “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (Tracy Morgan) and “some kind of very distant, strange comedy god” (Bob Odenkirk, who served as a member of the SNL writing staff before becoming a successful actor).

Lorne will introduce you to him, in full, for the first time. With unprecedented access to Michaels and the entire SNL apparatus, Morrison takes readers behind the curtain for the lively, up-and-down, definitive story of how Michaels created and maintained the institution that changed comedy forever.

Drawn from hundreds of interviews—with Michaels, his friends, and SNL’s iconic stars and writers, from Will Ferrell to Tina Fey to John Mulaney to Chris Rock to Dan Aykroyd—Lorne is a deeply reported, wildly entertaining account of a man singularly obsessed with the show that would define his life and have a profound impact on American culture.

In a blurb for the book, Kate McKinnon wrote, “The first time you walk into the building, it’s like you’re seeing the Wizard of Oz.” She was referring to Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza where the show is presented. Conan O’Brien, who served as a staff writer for the show for three seasons before becoming the host of TV’s Late Night (produced by Michaels), wrote, “If there were a Game of Thrones of show business, Lorne would be the last person standing.”

Watch the closing segment of the SNL 50th Anniversary special that aired on February 16, 2025

The author, Morrison, is the articles editor of The New Yorker. She is the former editor in chief of the New York Observer and an original editor of SPY magazine.