In front of an international television audience, actress and comedian Alex Borstein shimmied her way to the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards stage on September 17.
Borstein (B.A., ’92) won Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Susie Myerson on Amazon Prime’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Just eight days earlier, Borstein picked up a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for her longtime role as Lois Griffin on Fox’s Family Guy.
These are Borstein’s first Emmy Awards. Previously, in 2008, she was nominated with her Family Guy colleagues for Outstanding Animated Program.
Amy Sherman-Palladino, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel creator, wrote the Susie Myerson character specifically for Borstein. They previously worked together on Gilmore Girls.
“I think she can do everything,” Sherman-Palladino says in an IMDB Live interview conducted backstage at the Primetime Emmys. “ … In the many years that I’ve worked with her, she’s even better than I thought she would be.”
Borstein joined Family Guy at its inception in 1999. She is also a writer for the cartoon. She was a cast member and writer on Fox’s MADtv, where she gained acclaim for her character Ms. Swan. She has also appeared on Shameless, The Cleveland Show, Getting On, Robot Chicken, Workaholics and many more television shows.
Her film credits include Bad Santa, Good Night and Good Luck, Catwoman, Dinner for Schmucks and Ted. The Deerfield, Illinois, native trained in improvisational comedy at the ACME Comedy Theatre in Los Angeles.
While attending San Francisco State, Borstein performed with sketch troupes in Mary Ward Hall and the student union. She also performed stand-up comedy on campus and around San Francisco.
“That was my pulse during college,” Borstein says in a story from the fall/winter 2017 issue of SF State Magazine. “I loved it, performing in the dorms and at the school and other places around the town. It fed me creatively.”
— Matt Itelson
Links
- Alex Borstein on Internet Movie Database
- Emmy Awards
- Laughing Matters, SF State Magazine, fall/winter 2017
- Communication Studies Department
Photo courtesy of the Television Academy